


Kill The Lights

by silver9mm



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Bad BDSM Etiquette, Blood Drinking, Cheating, Dark, Dean Has an Eating Disorder, Depressed Dean, Drug Addiction, Drug Withdrawal, Enemas, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, Gangbang, Gunplay, Heavy BDSM, Implied Bestiality, M/M, Murder-Suicide, Needles, Overdosing, Possessive Sam, Rape/Non-con Elements, Recreational Drug Use, Sub Dean, Unhappy Ending, Watersports, powers!Sam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-22 14:31:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 35
Words: 143,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6082965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silver9mm/pseuds/silver9mm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Less than a minute had passed since Sam had killed the guard and then five more people. This man’s speech had lasted maybe twenty seconds, but Sam had been separated from Dean for three hundred and sixteen days and nine hours, which made the total time of his life without Dean nearly five complete years, and the thought of listening to this fucker talk for one more second instead of getting his brother and getting the fuck out was unendurable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hellhoundsprey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellhoundsprey/gifts).



> AU for S4. Sam never got stabbed in S2, so Dean ends up in a brothel. Sam rescues him, but kind of makes everything worse. 
> 
> My soul belongs to [hellhoundsprey](http://archiveofourown.org/users/hellhoundsprey). Her enthusiasm for this story and fucking mind blowing illustrations are things I am not worthy of.
> 
> Title from Hozier's [To Be Alone](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyxfTqnUlRs)  
> Soundtracks  
> [Definitive(8tracks)](http://8tracks.com/silver9mm/kill-the-lights), [Definitive(Youtube)](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuB2rGbcqG9loHjRaXx9SW03ftvqWSJMv)  
> [Dean's Theme(8tracks)](https://8tracks.com/silver9mm/kill-the-lights-b-sides)  
> [Sam's Theme(8tracks)](https://8tracks.com/silver9mm/kill-the-lights-vol-4)  
> [Sam/Ruby(8tracks)](https://8tracks.com/silver9mm/kill-the-lights-sam-ruby%0A)  
> [rarities(8tracks)](https://8tracks.com/silver9mm/kill-the-lights-rarities), [rarities(Youtube)](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuB2rGbcqG9mGWFTk8hjSAJK2qXFjpN7k)  
> Visuals:  
> [NSFW](http://unable-to-lose-this-image.tumblr.com/tagged/ktl) [SFW](http://silver9mm.tumblr.com/tagged/ktl)-ish
> 
> kisses right on the brain to [saorinasasha](http://archiveofourown.org/users/saorinasasha), [krav](http://archiveofourown.org/users/krav), [bloodandcream](http://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodandcream), and [omgbubblesomg](http://archiveofourown.org/users/omgbubblesomg)

 

“What’s on your mind, dear?” the girl asked, her voice caustic-care, mocking.

Sam snorted through his nose and kept brushing his teeth, watching her in the mirror. She was resting against the headboard, naked, ankles wide, knees drawn up and together as she shoveled cold pizza into her mouth, smirking at him as she chewed.

“Y’always thinkin’ of your brother when you fuck me, Sam?” she said through the food.

He scrubbed his tongue, spit, rinsed, spit again. The water ran pink. He faced her and leaned against the sink, ignoring how his blood rushed in his ears, made his muscles quiver, flooded his cock again. Her blood. Her blood was raging in him.

“Why are you doing this?” he grated. “Why now? I’ve looked for months…”

She shrugged and brushed dark hair off her shoulder with pizza-greasy fingers. Bloody fingers.

“I just found out where he was.” She reached for another slice.

“I haven’t seen you in three weeks, Ruby.” He moved nearer to her. Over her, looming. She blinked innocently up at him. “And now you show up with a fix and a fuck and an address. Why? Don’t,” Sam snapped. “Do not fucking lie to me, don’t give me any cryptic bullshit. What do you want? Why would you tell me where Dean is _now_?”

“I just found out,” Ruby repeated slowly, as if speaking to an imbecile. She tossed the pizza crust back in the box and wiped her fingers on the bedspread. It was destroyed anyway after what they’d done. “I knew you’d need a little…extra to get into the place. I can lure a lot of the demons away, maybe all of them, there’ll still be men with guns between you, him, and getting out. Besides, Sam, you missed me, didn’t you?”

“Like a fucking hole in the head.”

Ruby giggled and lay back, spreading out on the bed, wiggling down, opening her knees, displaying the wet mess between them. “Fucking hole, huh?”

She laughed again when Sam knelt over her, one hand fisted in her hair, the other lifting her small body by the hips. He thrust into her, pushed hard, relentlessly, filling her and then hurting her with his length and angle, and then he held her there, watching ticks of pain and pleasure war across her face.

“Why, Ruby?” he growled, hips moving, stirring his cock inside her, opening her wide. “Fucking answer me. What do you _want_?”

“ _Sam_. Fuck. Want your help. Fuck, fuck.” She reached for him, trying to pull him down, but he kept away, knowing if he brought his face anywhere near her body he’d tear into her flesh. He needed to control this, wanted to keep from needing her so much.

Ruby came to him two weeks after Dean disappeared. He and Dean had split up during a case in L.A. and Dean had never returned from talking to the surviving members of a family whose son had been killed by…Sam couldn’t remember now. Didn’t care anymore. He’d searched everywhere for Dean, called everyone he knew, tried location spells, auguries, psychics. Nothing had come of his efforts. It was like Dean had simply vanished. Then Ruby had appeared and, even fucked up like he was, Sam knew something was off about her. But he couldn’t concentrate on the snide-talking tiny demoness when she’d intercepted him at a crossroad when he’d gone to bury the trinkets to call a different kind of demon, one he could make a contract with to get his brother back from…wherever.

“You don’t need to do that, Sam,” she’d insisted, coming absurdly close to the distraught, drunk hunter. “Let me help you instead, okay?”

“ _Fuck. Off_.”

“Look, I don’t know where your brother is, but I’ll help you find him, I promise. And,” she lowered her voice as if in the middle of Iowa surrounded by thousands of acres of corn, someone might hear them, “I’ll show you a better way to deal with demons in the meantime.”

After he’d shot her, she knocked him out, took his trinket box, and he woke up in the Impala, alone. Eight hundred miles later, she was waiting by the car when he came out of a Gas-N-Sip bathroom, and she continued to show up with more and more regularity in the following months. She never got him closer to wherever Dean was, but she assured him he was still alive and brought him demons who confirmed it as they died, Sam’s ability to exorcise them getting better and better under Ruby’s tutelage, and with the help of her blood.

He knew it was wrong, feeding on her, drinking her blood, getting so fucking high from it, feeling so powerful, but she was right. He could now save people instead of killing them when they were possessed. Usually. Sometimes he screwed up and the human host died anyway, but his track record was improving, and though he knew Dean would not approve of his new method, Dean wasn’t here. Dean had disappeared off the face of the fucking planet for all he knew. If Ruby hadn’t been around to assure him his brother was alive, there was a good chance he wouldn’t be, either. Without Dean, there wasn’t much of Sam worth keeping alive. At least that’s the way Sam felt.

Ruby felt differently. She told Sam he was special, and strong, unique, and she wanted to prove it to him. She promised he wouldn’t always need the extra kick of her blood to extract the demons, but it would take time and training. But it was addictive. When she wasn’t around, when she decided to disappear on him too, there was no ignoring the need. The itch under his skin, the crawling of his scalp, the flashes of violence behind his eyes. He drank beer, he worked out, he drove to the middle of nowhere and screamed at the sky, screamed at Ruby, at Dean. And Ruby would always come eventually, and she always gave him what he wanted. Sometimes only a taste, enough to take the edge off, and he thanked her. Other times she laid a vein open for him and those times where a blur of ecstasy and power, and he’d started fucking her then, somehow finding that more repugnant than drinking her blood, but there was no one else.

Sam scared people, he knew that. Since Dean had disappeared, he’d changed. Slowly at first, but months into the loneliness, months into training with Ruby and her blood in his mouth, when he got near civilians they shied away from him. Always the gentle giant before, the calm and caring one, there was something feral about him now and people seemed to sense it, and cowered. So he kept to himself, taking only the most extreme cases of possession, with Ruby right at his shoulder, guiding, helping, giving. Encouraging him.

“When we find your brother, you’ll be able to just take him, Sam. Nothing will be able to stop you!”

That was weeks ago.

When she called tonight, babbling excitedly and instructing him to meet her in Rochester, New York, Sam was at the end of his rope. The last exorcism and the amount of her blood it had taken him to extract the demon had both been too much for him. Left him feverish and shaking, needing more or needing to quit. Planning on quitting this time, determined to tell the little dark-eyed bitch to go right the fuck back to Hell. He was already poisoned with demon blood, had been since he was a baby. There was nothing he could do about that, but being a junkie for it was just going to distract him in the long run. He didn’t have time wait around for her to give him his fix. He’d get clean and start over, and bring his brother back his way. 

But she’d found Dean.

“Help with what?” He thumbed over her throat before clamping down, pissed off she confused him, that he wanted to trust her.

“To kill a demon,” she gasped when he released her enough to talk.

“I thought that was the whole point of me doing all this,” he scoffed, iron inside her, pinning her down like a moth spread out beneath him.

“No, god, _stupid_. Whatever it takes. Kill the host, whoever she jumps into. She’s dangerous. Powerful. She’s _important_ ,” Ruby spit, and then couldn’t say anything for a long time as Sam used her breasts to hold himself up, smashing her down.

Whatever it took, Sam agreed to do. Ruby wouldn’t tell him much more, claiming the less he knew the safer he was for now, and encouraged him to concentrate on getting Dean.


	2. Chapter 2

Sam surveyed the old brownstone squatting in the darkness. A few of the windows were lit up. Sam had a vague notion of what was going on in those rooms, but it was of no concern to him. He was headed downstairs into the half-city-block, two-story-deep basement filled with armed guards.

He was calmer than he had any right to be. Ruby’s blood had that effect. Calmed him, empowered him. Not quite invincible, but he felt strong and capable and single-minded. It took the edge off any fear, which was essential when he was dealing with demons. That was their way in, their universal key, and having a little bit of demon inside him fortified his defenses. It heightened his senses, too, made him acutely aware of the thrumming energy of the place. Of the darkness that lived and breathed and bred inside it.

Sam was dressed to the nines. Ruby had outfitted him and admonished him not to get the suit bloody.

“Here’s the receipt. You return it and you can put gas in that beast outside for a year,” she said, slapping the paper onto the table between them. “And here is your glorified squirt gun. Be careful. It’s just as likely to blow up in your hand as work right.”

She handed him the tiny plastic pistol. The size of a derringer, it would fit neatly into the crease between his thigh and his balls, a place unlikely to be patted down. Made entirely of hard resin, the gun had been printed, something Sam didn’t understand but didn’t care about at the moment. It was the only way he was going to get through the metal detectors. The bullets were pressed resin. Hollow points, they were designed to expand on impact and break apart inside a body.

“You get up close,” Ruby said, sidling around the table to Sam’s side, peering up at him with eyes so dark brown they could be black, like they were sometimes anyway, “and you put that against a man’s belly and pull the trigger.” Her sharp-nailed finger pushed into his stomach. “Pshew,” she noised. “Guts all ripped up inside, almost no mess outside. Hardly makes a sound, too. I tried it. It’s only good for twenty or thirty shots before the barrel gets too hot.”

She’d given him a fancy invitation as well. Sealed with red wax stamped with an ‘A’, even the paper envelope felt expensive.

“You owe me anal for that, mister,” Ruby said. “Wouldn’t believe who I had to torture and what I had to steal to get it. Uber ‘members only’ club, apparently.”

“‘A’?” he questioned, not taking the bait, not wanting to know.

“Alpha. That’s what you are, huh, big boy? Alpha male, all the way.”

When he pulled a face, she rolled her eyes. “Means you’re there to fuck, not to _be_ fucked. Or fucked with. It’s a chaperone-free pass. You get to go where you want, when you want. Get access to anyone and anything, particularly the ‘special’ rooms. Where the real entertainment goes on, I hear.”

“Entertainment? Like, what, sex shows?” he managed to keep his voice even, not give away the horror building inside him since Ruby told him where Dean had been for almost a year.

“Pff, that’s what the whole upper part of the building is for. Nope, nothing so vanilla. They keep the real kinksters downstairs, which is where you’ll be going, where this invitation gets you. Act like you’ve been there before, okay?”

Sam scanned the building again, took a deep breath, and started towards the entrance.

He took the wet front steps two at a time, put his hand to the chill metal door handle and pushed. There was a hiss and a loud click as it opened.

Inside, red light bled from some unseen source, painting everything a soft cherry colour, including the faces of the two people waiting for him. A large man stepped from the shadows, black-gloved hand outstretched. Sam gave him the invitation. The man did little more than glance at it before handing it back and flipping a phone out of his pocket and pointing it at Sam. It clicked, and something behind him beeped. A young woman in a movie-theater style ticket booth, her hair, nails, skin, and clothes all shades of pink, tapped at her computer, looking so bored Sam half expected her to twirl gum around her finger.

Ruby’s blood fortified his nerve, kept Sam from shuffling his feet as he waited about thirty seconds before the phone chirped and the man eyed the screen, and then Sam. Nodding, the man’s thumb moved over his phone for a few seconds, and then he beckoned Sam to follow him down the hall. At an intersection, the man paused and looked at Sam. They were standing at a junction—two staircases side by side leading up and between them, one leading down.

“ _Étouffement_ ,” Sam said through numb lips, repeating the word Ruby had taught him.

The man gestured to the middle path and, speaking in a thick accent that Sam could only place as South American somewhere, told Sam how far down the hallway he would need to go, the turns to take and the room to enter. Ruby had given Sam the same instructions, so Sam didn’t have to pay too much attention; if the man noticed Sam’s distraction at all, he probably chalked it up to eagerness to be on his way. When he stopped talking, Sam said nothing, so the man nodded again and turned, leaving Sam alone.

After a deep breath, Sam descended the stairs. He’d memorised the directions, but he still took care to note any and all landmarks he saw to keep himself oriented, to be able to retrace his steps. He wasn’t alone along his path: men dressed similar to the South American at the entrance where stationed sporadically outside certain doors, looking for all the world like airport security, but Ruby had warned him of that, too. It would only be after he’d entered a room that he would be suspect, only after he’d seen the entertainment and the faces of the people being entertained that he’d be stopped, his invitation opened at last.

“Stamped like a Visa,” she explained. “There’s checkpoints all along the way out. No taking the merchandise out of the store without a receipt, know what I mean?”

“How do I get a receipt, then?”

“You don’t, Sam. You get a gun.”

The gun was nestled safely against his inner thigh, taped there, some hair to be sacrificed. He’d expected to be patted down, but maybe that only happened on the way out, too, and he assumed he’d walked through a metal detector on the way in. Possibly more than one.

The men paid him no mind, as far as he could tell, their eyes obscured by tinted glasses, even in the dimly lit halls.

Music was thumping through the walls as he passed by closed doors, different beats for different parties, he guessed. The air was moving, cool, and smelled to Sam faintly like a porn store: like lube and desperation and money.

Three guards, eight doors, two left turns and three rights, and Sam paused for a heartbeat outside a black door with a gold rose stenciled above the knob. If Ruby’s intel was correct, his brother was on the other side. There would also be half a dozen other people. There _should_ have been demons, too, but the help he had promised Ruby had garnered her help in return.

“It’s an easy score for lost souls, places like this,” she’d supplied. “Demons hang out, looking for people who want to escape, or people that want more of whatever sick shit they can’t get enough of. They beg and we deliver.”

“For a price,” Sam said, bile rising.

“That’s right. Nothing's free in this world, is it, Sam? We get their soul down the road. Most of those people aren't doing much with it, anyway.”

“So how will I get around without a demon seeing me? I’m kinda well known…”

The way Ruby smiled at him made him glad she wouldn’t give details. She simply said she could lure away whoever was on duty there with ‘a sure thing.’

Weeks later, Sam’s curiosity would get the best of him and, scanning Rochester news, he would find reports of three suicides of CEOs, an accidental overdose of an heiress to a baby bottle manufacturing fortune, two teenagers who’d slaughtered their families, one by fire and one with a gun, and the double homicide of a cheating spouse, all the same night he’d gone after Dean. There were no coincidences in his life, he knew that, but Ruby had kept her promise and no black eyes flashed at Sam as he entered the room, no rotten egg stench could be detected, no one even gave him a second look except the guard who closed the door behind him.


	3. Chapter 3

The music was loud inside the room, but not deafening: some Nine Inch Nails with lots of heavy breathing mixed in. Sam slipped the invitation into the man’s waiting hand, and this time the wax seal was popped and the card opened, and, using a rubber stamp dangling from a chain on his wrist, he marked inside the card and handed it back. Sam pocketed the paper, stepped to the side, in the shadows still, and took stock of the room.

The walls were padded, probably sound-proofed, and built up to make the room appear circular. There were high-backed chairs next to small tables at intervals around either wall to his left and right, the opening in front of him giving him a clear view to the other side of the room where, under a spotlight on a stone pedestal right out of some ’70s style cult horror flick, complete with heavy chain shackles and a channel running through the stone to collect blood or whatever else, a young woman was being waterboarded by another female.

In the twenty seconds or so Sam found himself transfixed by what he was seeing, the girl on the slab, her long, crimson hair moving like tendrils of fire in the water flowing around her, gagged and choked and thrashed as the other woman, dressed head to toe in a latex catsuit that only showed her blonde hair sticking out of the top and her heavily lined, blue eyes and red lips, poured water slowly over the girl’s face. The girl seemed weak and judging by the splash marks around the two, Sam figured they’d been at it a while. The woman in latex peeled the cloth off the girl’s face only to wad it into a wet ball and poke it deeply into her mouth, which was being held open by a spider gag, and pinch the girl’s nose shut. Her white body arched up in desperation, and Sam tore his eyes away.

He saw Dean immediately and it took every ounce of willpower he had not to run to him. His brother was only recognisable by the shape of his body, his face obscured by a muzzle of some sort that covered everything from his forehead to his jaw. His hair was longer than Sam was used to, falling over the front of the mask, and as Sam moved closer, edging around a vacant table as if taking a seat, he could see the rest of Dean’s body was suited in thick, black rubber: a reverse straitjacket that had Dean’s arms pulled behind him, and shiny pants, tight like a second skin. He was kneeling, his ass on the heels of flexible army-style boots, and in the chair at his side was a well-dressed middle-aged man. As Sam watched and calculated, the man leaned over Dean. There was no reaction from his brother’s bound form, but the man smiled to himself and called out in a nasal voice. The woman stopped her torture of the redhead and began to move towards the man and Dean, and Sam had had enough.

Along with the two women, there was the man with Dean, and three others, including the guard behind him at the door. There were three other slaves as well, but one of them was bound as Dean was, and therefore not a threat. The other two, a well-muscled black man, mostly naked but for a collar and wrist cuffs all linked together by thin chains, and a woman with more piercings than Sam could count in more places than he’d known could be pierced, were free enough to interfere, but still the least of his worries. He hoped. Ruby hadn’t been able to assure him the patrons weren’t carrying any sort of panic buttons, or that there weren’t cameras in the rooms. Some had them, some did not, she said, but probably the more nefarious the entertainment, the less likely it was to be filmed.

The woman in the catsuit was leaning over the man next to Dean as he gestured with a limp wrist at the sobbing, coughing redhead, and then at Dean. Sam turned his back on the guard and jammed his hand down his pants, grabbed the little gun at his crotch and jerked it free, adrenaline keeping him from feeling the patch of hair that came away with the tape. He stripped the tape clear of the gun, dropping the three extra clips that had been secured to the handle into his pocket, pushed the safety to red and, with four large strides, was face to face with the guard once more. The man looked up at him curiously. Sam smiled, pushed the barrel against the man’s sternum and pulled the trigger.

The gun went off like the clapping of hands, and no one seemed to notice. The music was perfect for covering up the gasp the man made as the bullet shattered ribs and tore into his lungs. Sam grabbed his jacket and held him, stepping forward, pushing him back into the shadows, then let him slide down the wall. As Sam straightened he heard a shuffle to his right. The man with the pierced slave was leaning around his table, trying to get a better look at what Sam was doing. Sam stepped to him next, the gun angled down against the man’s side, and pulled the trigger twice. The bullets went in under his arm, and when he tried to yell, lung tissue and blood were the only things that came from his lips. The woman at his feet screamed and Sam pointed the gun at her face.

“Stay down,” he commanded, and she nodded, eyes wide. She put her palms to the floor and lowered her head and Sam wondered if he should kill her anyway, but the clatter of a table going over behind him forced him to turn his back on her. Sam crossed the room to the guy who was now on his feet next to his hooded and bound slave, firing. Four bullets hit the balding, ruddy-faced man, and with a surprised look, he went down, collapsing to his knees first, then over onto his side, dead before he hit the ground.

The last shot in the clip went into the woman in the latex catsuit. Sam didn’t know what she was doing, where she was going, but he saw her darting towards a shadowy spot behind the pedestal, and he shot her in the back before she reached her destination. Perhaps she was only going to hide, but Sam couldn’t chance there was another way out or a way to alert any guards. If there were cameras in the room, he only had seconds to finish what he’d started.

He dropped the empty clip as the woman went down, pawing at her back. Sam snapped the refill in place and put two more bullets in her, and then another four in a blur of chains and muscle as the black man launched himself at Sam. It took two more to stop him, but the man the slave had been protecting seemed to be frozen in his chair, allowing Sam to walk up to him and put a bullet in his eye.

That left the hooded slave and the pierced woman, who were both in similar positions on the floor, hunched over, face down, cowering. And the man next to Dean.

“Do I know you, son?” the man asked, and something about his voice made Sam’s skin crawl. “You seem to have cut the apple away from the core, so I can only guess your issue is with me or—” he flipped his hand towards Dean, who was still kneeling, but head up, not like the other two slaves. Blind, mute, able only to hear the gunshots and screams and thuds around him, he seemed calm. “This one here. If it’s him you want, fine. My time with him is just about done, anyway. His training is complete. Tonight was supposed to have been…an initiation of sorts. A graduation party, if you will. If not—”

Less than a minute had passed since Sam had killed the guard and then five more people. This man’s speech had lasted maybe twenty seconds, but Sam had been separated from Dean for three hundred and sixteen days and nine hours, which made the total time of his life without Dean nearly five complete years, and the thought of listening to this fucker talk for one more second instead of getting his brother and getting the fuck out was unendurable.

Three bullets cut the man’s preamble short and silenced him for good. Sea-grey eyes went shock-wide and blood welled in his throat, pooled in his open mouth and drizzled out as his head tipped forward, his body slumped but upright.

The dead outnumbered the living in the room now, but Sam only cared about one of them. He put the gun in his pocket and then his hands to Dean’s head. He tried for the blindfold first, but it was attached to something else and covered by a muzzle formed to Dean’s face: cupping his chin, fitted over his nose, holding his jaw closed. It had two rivet-holes at his nostrils and dual straps that locked above his ears and around the back of his neck. It came away easily enough, the rivets clicking against the small, thick, stainless steel ring through Dean’s septum. Sam’s stomach turned over at the sight.

The second apparatus underneath the mask was more complicated and gave Sam pause. His hand went for his pocketknife before he remembered he wasn’t carrying it, and besides, there was no telling how Dean was going to react. He still hadn’t moved, letting Sam jerk and tug at his head, but Sam didn’t want the first thing Dean saw to be him with a blade in his hand.

Not knowing what else to do, he started at the top, flicking open buckles as fast as he could. The one around the back of his head came open, but he had to take the metal pieces entirely off so he could pull the straps through the sides of the eye shield. They were connected to a square of leather that covered Dean’s mouth, and linked again under his chin, near his throat. Sam worked that open, but the leather didn’t come off so easily. He pulled experimentally on the leather base. Dean swallowed convulsively against the suction as a three-inch long black silicone cock-shaped gag slid out of his mouth. Disgusted, Sam flung the thing to the side and tore at the buckle behind Dean’s head, stripping the last of the thick leather away.

Perhaps another solid minute had gone by. It was finally over. They were together. Sam put his hand to Dean’s cheek. His eyes were shut tight, mouth slightly open and saliva-slick. He seemed to be breathing hard and trying not to show it.

“Dean? Dean, hey, look at me. It’s Sam. Come on, big brother. I got you. We’re gonna get out of here.” He said the words fast and quiet, and repeated them, unconsciously wiping his thumbs over the deep grooves the muzzle and gag had left on Dean’s face. Dean wouldn’t open his eyes.

Sam glanced over his shoulder, making sure the exit was still clear and the bodies were still down. The room was quiet except for the music and the faint rattling from the trembling, pierced slave on her knees nearby. Sam couldn’t lead Dean out of here blind. He scanned him, wondering if there was something he was missing. Besides his arms secured high and tight behind him, his legs were free, but he was ignoring Sam for whatever reason.

“We have to go, Dean,” Sam growled and yanked Dean’s head up by his bangs. No response. “Damn it, you’re not a slave! Open your eyes!” Sam shouted, almost nose to nose with his brother.

As if he’d said the magic words— _slave open your eyes_ —Dean did. His blank expression morphed into one of confusion, and for a fleeting moment, a tiny smile curled the corners of his mouth. Then his eyes widened, going round and huge. He stayed on his knees, looking back at Sam, waiting, resigned to the idea that Sam had appeared only to begin ordering him around as well.

“Dean, _get up_.”

The smell of hot plastic and blood almost overpowered the scent of lube and fear in the air. Dean blinked once and turned to the dead man in the chair next to him. He lingered over the small bloody hole at the man’s heart but quickly looked away from the slack face. His eyes darted around to the other bodies in the room, and Sam thought he saw a frown pass over Dean’s face when he found the body of the black male sprawled in the middle of the room, but it was gone before he could be sure, and only then did he look back up at Sam. Still, he did not move.

There wasn’t time for whatever protocol Dean thought he had to follow, but Sam knew playing along was how he was going to get his brother moving. He grabbed Dean’s shoulder, digging in as hard as he could, and shook him. Dean’s head snapped back, but he regained his stance, his attention completely on Sam, finally.

“Hey! I took you from him, okay? You’re mine now, and I want you to get the fuck up and come with me. _Now_.”

That did it. With a practiced move, Dean tucked his toes under, rocked back onto his heels and rose smoothly. His arms were still straight-jacketed behind him, but there was no time to free him. Sam reloaded the clip and, grabbing Dean by the belt, he led them through the room. Sam spared a glance at the girl on the altar. She was breathing, but somehow he knew he hadn’t saved her.

Three times someone stepped out of the shadows and demanded identification. Sam put the gun up against their bellies and pulled the trigger, and three men went down, the shrapnel-making bullets tearing through guts and lungs more important than duty. Dean never made a noise, never tried to help or hinder, merely stopped when Sam stopped, stayed where Sam shoved him and trotted along obediently when Sam picked up the pace as they neared the exit.

Sam paused short of being seen by the last guard and the girl in the box office.

“Dean, do I have any blood on me?”

His brother’s eyes swept over him and he shook his head, the light glinting off the steel ring in his nose.

“Okay. Put your head down and whatever happens, stay right with me. Okay?”

A nod, another glint, and Sam took a deep breath and walked calmly to the doors. Quiet footsteps behind him told him Dean was following. He didn’t dare turn to look, knowing he had to stay in character.

He needed a miracle, and he got one. He should have been stopped at several checkpoints to have made it this far, and technically, he had been stopped, but the trail of dead men he’d left in his wake apparently hadn’t been discovered yet, and a curious eyebrow from the guard who pushed the door open for him and no look at all from the girl behind the glass were all they encountered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [illustration ](http://silver9mm.tumblr.com/post/142515774105%0A) by [hellhoundsprey](http://archiveofourown.org/users/hellhoundsprey/pseuds/hellhoundsprey)


	4. Chapter 4

The air outside was like perfume compared to the stench inside, and even Dean took a long inhalation as the New York wind hit them. It was snowing, and Sam shrugged out of his jacket, glad there was a vest under it, and draped it over Dean’s shoulders to keep him warm and hide the fact his arms were bound behind him. Sam put his hand on his brother’s back, low, and led him along the narrow alley, down the deserted street to the lot where he’d parked a stolen car.

He hated to do it, but he opened the back door and ushered Dean inside. “I need you to get on the floor, okay? You gotta hide for awhile.”

Sam hadn’t counted on Dean’s arms being bound, and the sight of him kneeing his way into the car, shuffling forward and then bending over, forehead down on the blanket Sam had put on the floorboards, and settling there like a lump made Sam gulp back a burst of hysterical laughter. _Dean_ would have said _no way_ , would have argued, would have told him to get fucked, but this man did as asked and nothing more, didn’t even roll onto his side as would be more comfortable.

He _had_ gotten his brother back, hadn’t he?

Sam kept a watchful eye on the road behind him, twisting through boroughs and city centers, heading south, but an hour went by and the only cars he’d seen had been taxis that had gone their own ways, one after the other, and just over the border into New Jersey he pulled the car down into a wide, shallow ditch a thousand yards from the truck stop he’d parked the Impala at the day before.

“Dean, hey.” He twisted around and lifted the blanket off his brother, peering at him in the predawn gloom. Sam had coaxed him onto the seat once they’d cleared the city. Dean had fallen asleep, and now he wouldn’t wake up. Sam reached back and shook him, called his name again and was rewarded with the tiniest flutter of thick lashes, Dean’s eyes showing white beneath them.

“Okay. Dean! I’ll be right back, I swear. I gotta go get Baby. Your car? Don’t move, and I’ll be right back for you, I promise. With Baby.”

Dean’s lips pressed together as if he was mouthing the word to himself, and Sam had to be content with that. He pulled on a hoodie, knowing it looked ridiculous with the expensive slacks he had on, and, trying not to slip in the mud of the ditch, clambered up the rise and jogged down the road and across the snowy lot. His hood up, hiding his hair and face, he scanned the area as he made his way to the car. Warded, it was still recognisable to anyone who knew to look, and if they were going to be stopped by demons or anyone else, it would be now.

“What’s up, lover-boy? Did you open up the box and get the prize inside?”

Ruby kicked her heels, sitting on the hood of the Impala, grinning at him, knowing the answer already, seeing it on his face. She looked so tiny compared to the huge car, and in Sam’s hands as he lifted her off it and to her feet.

“Look at you, not even a drop on your fancy pants!” She fake-socked him in the arm. “I knew you could do it.”

“Thanks for your help, Ruby. I mean it. Now please, go away.”

Ruby pouted extravagantly while Sam unlocked the car. She stepped between him and the door before he could close it.

“That’s it? Just ‘go away’? Think you’re all done with me now you got your womb-kin back? I think fucking not, Sam. We had a deal. You don’t break deals with demons.”

Sam glared at her, and she glared back. “I’m not breaking our deal. I need to take care of Dean. Look, call me later, okay? Don’t show up. Call. I’ll help you kill your damn demon, I promise, I just gotta take care of my brother right now.”

Ruby threw her hands up in surrender and backed away. “Fine. You don’t answer, though, and I will show up. Hell, Sam,” she purred, running her fingertips over his arm as she cleared the door, “you’ll probably be calling for me before too long, the way it’s been…”

“Right, whatever. Don’t follow me.” Sam slammed the door on any more banter and revved the engine, flicking the heater to high. The car surged forward with almost no pressure to the gas as if it knew Dean was waiting.

Sam abandoned the other car in the ditch. He got Dean to the Impala mostly on his own two feet and Dean even made some sort of happy noise upon seeing the black shine of the Impala, but an hour down the road and he was slumped against the passenger side window, moaning, his legs dancing under the dash, kicking out, twitching and jerking. Still bundled into the rubber suit, arms twisted around behind him, but he’d made no demands to be free of it, and Sam just wanted to get away.

A cheap motel twenty minutes west of Philadelphia was where he was forced to stop. Dean was sweating, panting and gasping and thrashing hard enough he’d hit his head against the door, opened a shallow gash along his hairline that was now getting blood everywhere and Sam was lightheaded from the smell and exhaustion. It was too soon for him to be coming down from Ruby’s blood—he usually had at least several days before he got jumpy, and another week after that before he’d start fiending for it. He hadn’t taken much from her this last time, anyway, and Dean’s blood shouldn’t be making his mouth water. He was human, and no human’s blood had ever been appetizing.

Sam shrugged it off and parked the car, glad it was early morning in a shifty part of town, so few would see the weird pair they made as Sam helped Dean up the stairs and into the room, his older brother’s shiny pants and boots gleaming in the streetlights, and Sam’s expensive suit worth robbing him over.

Dean fell as the door closed behind them, dropping like a rock to his knees, so fast Sam had no chance to catch him. He hunched over and made a weak retching noise, his forehead to the grimy carpet. Sam crouched next to him, surveying the outfit Dean was wearing. It was probably easiest just to leave him there, Sam thought, slinging his bag from his shoulder and digging into the front pocket. He flicked his knife open. At the noise, Dean looked up, eyes glazed.

“C’mere,” Sam said, gently pushing Dean up on his knees. “I’m going to get this…outfit off of you, okay?”

No reaction.

“Just…don’t move.”

A softly hissed word came as a reply, and Sam shuddered. “Sir.”

He cut the straps on Dean’s chest first. Dean bit his lip as his arms dropped from their position behind his back, making Sam wish he’d been more gentle, had helped them come down one by one, no telling how long they’d been in that position. There was surely a safer way to get the top off, but Sam wanted to destroy it, wanted it ruined. Carefully, nudging Dean’s head forward and down with the side of his hand, he put the blade to the rubber. He barely managed to get a finger under the heavy collar and Dean coughed as the tension pulled on his throat from the front, but it split easily after the initial cut, and Sam opened it all the way down Dean’s spine. He was bare beneath it, his body dusted with some kind of powder. Sam peeled the rubber off his brother’s skin, worked Dean’s arms out of it, with no help from Dean, and he threw the thing towards the door. He’d take it to the trash as soon as he could.

Dean shivered as the cool air hit his skin, and Sam released the knife onto the bed for a moment, not trusting his shaking hand as the vision before him sank in. Dean had to have lost forty pounds, at least: lean, almost wiry looking, any excess fat long since melted away. He was pale. Beyond pale, veins visible through the skin of his arms and chest and Sam wondered if he shouldn’t worry about vitamin deficiency on top of everything else. He was so _thin_. And scarred. Down both arms from his shoulders were long, pink marks, shiny with scar tissue, as if claws had raked him, and his chest was peppered with healed flesh, like burn marks almost. The insides of both arms at the elbow were discoloured and Sam’s heart sank. Needle marks. He’d known in the back of his mind that Dean must have been drugged, that there was no way he could’ve _not_ been drugged, but seeing proof of it…

Dean’s eyes closed and he was slumping into unconsciousness again. Sam tapped his cheek lightly. “Hey, buddy. I need you to stand up. Can you?”

For an answer, Dean leaned forward, pushing himself up laboriously. Arms under Dean’s, Sam helped him back to his feet, but he was swaying too much for Sam to let go of him, so he shuffled them around and let him down on one of the two beds. Dean fell back, limp, and lost consciousness with a sigh. Laid flat like that, Sam could count every one of Dean’s ribs, could see his hip bones jutting under the tight pants.

Sam pried the boots from Dean’s feet and, the knife in hand again, he sliced into the rubber pants, ankle to hip, first one side and then the other, and wiggled what was left from his brother’s body.

More powder, more scars, and a cock cage.

“Christ,” Sam muttered, backing away, a hand over his mouth. He closed his eyes, but that only enhanced the smell in the room: Dean’s sweat. PVC that seemed to have soaked up the scent of that place. Lube and blood. Sam gagged and took his hand from his face quickly.

“Focus, asshole,” he admonished himself. There were bolt cutters in the Impala which would make short work of the little lock trapping Dean’s dick in a metal-barred cage, secured onto this body by a connecting tensioner attached to a metal ring that was snug high up around his balls and over the top of his dick. But that meant having to leave him for a minute.

“Hey, Dean?” he said and moved between Dean’s legs where they were bent and hanging over the side of the bed. Bracing himself with one hand, he patted Dean’s cheek lightly with the other, then shook him by the jaw when he still didn’t react. That got a blink, and glazed green eyes slowly rolled to the fore and focused shakily on him. There might have even been the weakest of smiles against his fingers.

“Dean, you hear me? I’m gonna run down to the car. Just one minute and I’ll be back.”

Sam felt the vibration of Dean’s response more than he heard it, and he couldn’t help cupping Dean’s cheek, watching him slide back into oblivion, before moving for the door.

He was back in less than a minute and along with the bolt cutters, he brought his lock-pick kit. Going at his brother’s groin with a huge pair of snips made him queasy, so he thought he’d try a more delicate method first. He was glad whatever Dean was on, or coming down off of, had him so drowsy and out of it because awake, normal Dean would have been delivering punches and firing warning shots at Sam fondling his junk, and that looked exactly like what he was going to have to do.

Along with the ring and cage, there as an odd rectangular piece that came off the ring and latched around Dean’s balls, stretching them, pulling them down and slightly away from his body. How that must’ve felt inside those skin tight pants Sam shuddered to think about. Another escaped him, causing all the hair on his arms to stand on end when he figured out the rest of what he was seeing.

Picks in mostly steady fingers, he had the tiny Master Lock open in no time. He pulled it free of its hole, which would allow the cage body to be removed and the ring to swivel open. The cage had to go first.

Carefully, Sam pulled. Dean’s cock stretched long with the movement as the thick, hollow tube up his urethra was drawn out. It seemed an incomprehensible length to have inside him, but eventually, it came free, leaving Dean’s slit open and glistening. When the slightly rounded tip popped free of his body, Dean made a noise. Pleasure or pain, Sam couldn’t tell. Couldn’t tell which he wanted it to be.

Released from its small prison, Dean’s dick was filling out, moving languidly on its own as normal circulation returned, and Sam tried to keep his fingers away from it as he unhinged the ring around it and behind Dean’s balls. He pulled the ring through the slot that attached it to the ball stretcher and then it clinked against the discarded cage on the floor. The empty slot was now free to swing open, releasing its hold on Dean’s sac, but that left the last piece still lodged inside his body.

The stretcher had a five-inch bar coming off the back of it which curved between Dean’s cheeks and up into his ass, and Dean’s cock was hard now from what whatever was inside him was doing with Sam’s clumsy fiddling around and Sam was near tears, too close to be able to look away from his brother’s cock twitching gently in time with his heartbeat. With his own heartbeat, too, Sam realised. As if there was some connection that kept them inseparable, conjoined at a visceral level.

He tugged on the metal bar, staring blankly at Dean’s cock. Could only blink, startled, when he felt absolute resistance, and Dean’s hard-on jumped at the pull. Sam tried again, this time drawing on it steadily, and he felt a little give, but when Dean moaned he stopped, afraid of hurting him. Evidence suggested otherwise. Leaking at the tip, Dean’s cock was tapping against his belly now, draping strings of pre-come as it bobbed.

Sam tugged again, determined and ignoring the way Dean’s body arched. His knees threatened to come together almost demurely as if he wanted to keep the intruder inside him. It was moving easier now and Sam changed his grip on the bar. He felt resistance again, but Dean’s hole stretched, going wide and smooth as something pushed on it from the inside, and Sam pulled one last time.

The metal ball came free, and it was huge and heavy and thunked to the floor when Sam dropped it and Dean’s hole—Sam tried not to look—gaped and fluttered. Sam skittered away when Dean moaned and his legs kicked. He went up onto his toes, hips bucking off the bed as he arched up onto the crown of his head, and he came, hands at his sides, fisted in the sheets. Sam stood there in shock, watching, his own cock twitching in sympathy as his brother shot what looked like a lifetime’s worth of come onto his belly and ribs. Ribbon after ribbon of pent-up come jetted from Dean as his back bowed.

He spoke, but Sam refused to hear it, to acknowledge that his name came from Dean’s lips as he spent himself.

Dean relaxed, collapsed really, flattened out on the bed, his breath fast and shallow. His eyes were open, Sam realised with a jolt, and Sam wanted to hide from them as they found their way to where he was, but he stayed rooted to the spot, rock hard, sweating, his heart racing even as Dean’s slowed, separate now in the distance between them. Dean’s glassy eyes settled on Sam for a long moment before closing. There was still blood on his face and tension etched across his brow, and Sam had nearly come in his slacks at the sight of Dean orgasming in front of him, and all Sam wanted to do at that moment was crawl onto the bed next to his brother and weep with relief and confusion, frustration and fear and rage.

What he did instead was clean the room. Moving awkwardly, catching his shoes more than once against the carpet and almost stumbling, he gathered the remnants of Dean’s suit and the metal bits at the foot of the bed and stuffed them in a couple plastic grocery bags. He left the room without a word this time, going down the stairs and to the dumpster beside the building. He decided on the way back up the stairs that he had to clean Dean off, get at least some of the sweat and blood and, and everything else, off of him. He might wake up and bitch, otherwise, but when Sam opened the door he saw that Dean had roused himself enough to curl onto the bed. He’d snagged the slick comforter and rolled himself in it and was balled up in the center of the mattress.

Sam quietly changed his own clothes and stretched out on the other bed, on his side, facing the bundled up form of his brother, only the back of his head visible in the wadded floral blanket, and he wept. For an hour at least, tears leaked steadily from both eyes. He moved only to blow his nose a few times and take a sip of water, but he made no effort, mentally or otherwise, to stop himself from crying.


	5. Chapter 5

 

At some point, Sam fell asleep and his dreams were filled with repetitive, booming music, naked women dripping crimson and vicious dogs on short chains snapping at his every move as he ran down an endless hallway, screaming his brother’s name. It wasn’t a nightmare that woke him, however. It was his body’s gradual response to the smell in the room.

Bile and shit were making his nose burn and his head ache.

“What the fuck,” he gagged, sitting up groggily. He rubbed his eyes and clicked on the desk lamp, then scrambled from his bed and stuck his fingers in Dean’s mouth to scoop out vomit. Puke was bubbling from his nose and his lips were light blue, and only when Sam jammed his long fingers into Dean’s throat, wiggling them to try to open a passage, did Dean finally take a breath. He coughed, spattering Sam, and he spasmed as he inhaled bile and coughed again. Sam moved him out of the mess, which only revealed another. The blanket fell away from Dean, and Sam nearly added to the puke already on the bed.

It was his own fault, he knew in retrospect. He knew Dean was drugged, had to assume it was heroin, and he should have researched or just fucking remembered having seen _Trainspotting_. Either way, loss of bowel control was a common symptom in a lot of withdrawals, especially when you went cold-turkey.

He flipped Dean out of his soiled bed and onto his own clean bedspread and then used it like a sled to drag his brother’s twitching, moaning body into the bathroom. Doing his best to keep him from sliding down into the tub, Sam washed the majority of the filth off him. He also opened Dean’s mouth, confirming what he’d felt when he’d been opening his airway. There was a stud through Dean’s tongue. He thought about taking it out, but he didn’t know if he should when Dean was sick like this, if stomach acid would hindering it healing. While he was debating what to do next and drying Dean off, still in the tub, Dean made up his mind for him by puking on himself again, and it got worse from there.

Sam bribed the manager to let them stay despite the mess. It didn’t take much, just cash waved under his nose, and he tipped the housekeeper to bring extra sheets and towels and new blankets, and for the next three days he left Dean in the bathtub, sweating and cramping in every conceivable way, mumbling names Sam didn’t know and words he didn’t want to hear. He heard his own name occasionally. He had a small supply of food, mostly granola bars and soft apples at this point, but there was no way he was leaving Dean alone. He nabbed extra coffee packets from the housekeeper and then shooed her away, and posted himself in the bathroom where he could watch Dean, his spine jammed against the bathroom cabinet’s knob to keep him awake, and scoured the internet for anything to help his brother.

After thirty-three hours of Dean moaning and crying and shitting himself and Sam washing it away and supplying him with some clean sheets for padding, he called Ruby.

“Fuck me, Sam, you need to crack a window,” she declared, wrinkling her brow as he let her in. Dean was resting, though not sleeping, in the bathroom and it had been five hours since he’d last befouled everything around him, and Sam hoped that meant he was on the upswing.

“Hey. Yeah, probably. Guess I got used to it. Thanks for coming.”

“Oh, I always come for you, big boy.”

“Liar. Look, I can’t leave him, and I need some things. Food, some medicine—”

“You called me all the way here for _groceries_?”

“Ruby,” he said tiredly.

“I’ll stay with him.”

“You do know what the smell is, right?”

She made a face. “Fine, make a list. Of _course_ you’ve already got one,” she mocked and snatched the paper out of his hand. “Gimme your credit card, daddy. Keys, too.”

“What, no.”

“The fuck, Sam? You think I _drove_ here? You forget who I am?”

“ _What_ you are, and no, I didn’t forget. Dean’d never forgive me if I let a demon take his car.”

“Then don’t tell him, ding-dong,” she said, spying the keys on the table and ducking around him to grab them up. “Back in a hot minute!”

Sam shut the door behind her and went into the bathroom. Dean was jerking around in the bottom of the tub, legs moving like he was skipping in his sleep and it would be comical if it weren’t so terrible. He was bruised from banging against the porcelain, shivering like he was freezing and sweating at the same time. Sam had been drizzling water in his mouth, but he had no idea when the last time Dean had eaten and this was _bad._

He turned on the water in the sink to cover the sound of the Impala roaring to life outside, just in case, but Dean only muttered to himself and groaned, shaking.

Sam physically had to throw Ruby out later. She returned with everything on the list, and a few extras. Whisky, for one, and she waved it at Sam with a smirk on her face, obviously expecting to be asked to stay and drink. He appreciated the gesture, as well as the extra food and baby wipes she thought to pick up.

“Hey hey hey, watch the merchandise!” she complained when Sam caught her wrist and dragged her to the door, almost lifting her off her feet by one arm. “Some thanks! Sam, stop. _Sam_!” She turned and slammed her hand into his chest.

“What, Ruby? What the fuck do you _want_? I don’t fucking have time for you right now, okay?”

“But, Sam, Lilith—”

“Who? Ruby, I don’t care. It can wait.” He was still holding her wrist, but she had the doorknob in the other hand and was fighting to free herself, to shove her way back into the room, and Sam had to admit she looked furious.

“Make time, asshole. You need to be prepared for this—”

Sam honestly thought he growled at her for a second, and it was only her frowning and peering around him, back towards the bathroom, that made him realise it was Dean making the noise. Yelling raggedly. Sam felt Ruby sag in his grasp.

“Ruby,” he said, releasing her arm, bringing his hands to her shoulders instead, “Dean is really fucked up. He needs me right now. I get it, okay,” he added as she glared up at him. “I promised, and I will help you. I _will_. I just have to stay here until Dean’s on his feet again. Look, okay, how about this? If something happens and you need me right that minute, I’ll go with you, I swear. But if it can wait, just give me some more time. Please?”

“It can wait,” she grumbled.

Dean cried out again. Ruby’s eyebrow quirked and she bit her lip. She smiled up at him and shifted in his hands, pushing into him. “C’mon, Sam. We don’t have to talk shop. Lemme hang out, pour you a drink, huh? We could give your brother a sponge bath.”

He managed to get the door closed, her glaring and muttering ‘no fun’ on the other side of it.

Dean was curled awkwardly in the bathtub, moaning and shivering. Sam covered him with a clean sheet and went to sort the groceries. He put the things from the pharmacy into one group, lining them up in the order the recipe he’d found on the internet said they should go. Specific vitamins and mineral supplements first, and Sam dumped a handful of the pills into the Magic Bullet he found in the bag with the bananas. He added one of the bananas and a splash of Pedialyte and blended the mess together. Sam juggled the vitamin smoothie, a bottle of Imodium and an orange pill bottle into the bathroom.

Getting Dean into a position where he wouldn’t choke was difficult in the slippery tub, but he managed it eventually. The fact that Dean was semi-conscious helped. He hadn’t really slept, as far as Sam could tell, existing rather in a fitful state of jumping muscles and all-over pain and constantly running bodily fluids. Right now it was just his nose and eyes, thankfully, and Sam carefully wiped his face as clean as he could, Dean’s glassy eyes barely visible behind paper thin, bruised lids.

“Hey, Dean. Can you hear me? I got some stuff for you. I know you’d probably rather have whisky, and I have that, too, and when you get better we can drink the whole fucking bottle. Incentive, huh?” Sam was rambling, he knew he was, had been the whole time, mindlessly talking to Dean whenever he thought Dean might be able to hear him, whenever Sam’s heart and guts stopped hurting long enough for him to form words. Dean had not responded to him once, but sometimes he seemed as if he could see Sam. His eyes would stop wavering and focus, his pinpoint pupils would dilate, and Sam thought that was something, at least.

“But first, we gotta stop you from being so sick, okay? This will help,” he said, opening the liquid Imodium. He measured a big dose in the cup and sat it on the side of the tub before going for the pill bottle. “And this. Valium. You’ve gotta sleep. Think you can swallow this?”

Dean didn’t answer, of course, but he allowed Sam to open his mouth. Sam pressed the white pill onto Dean’s tongue behind the stud through it, then poured the Imodium in. Dean jerked his head back weakly but he didn’t spit anything out, swallowing painfully.

“Good, Dean, that’s good. Thank you. Okay, let’s try this.” He’d forgotten a spoon, but he didn’t want to leave Dean when he seemed more responsive than he had in days, so Sam dipped his finger into the blend and pushed a dollop of it between Dean’s lips, scraping it off against his teeth. He got about a third of the mixture into Dean before he gagged, and Sam decided that was enough for now. He’d try again in a few hours.

By the end of the fourth day, Dean had managed some coherent words to Sam, though he only asked for more drugs. The Valium was all Sam had to give him, and he was glad of it, because it was horrible to watch Dean suffer like he was and more than anything, Sam wanted the pain to stop. This _was_ pain. Dean cried and moaned, rubbed at his legs, arched his back. He wrapped his arms around his head and screamed himself hoarse as if it somehow alleviated the agony. Maybe it did. The Valium helped, and Dean seemed to be a little better each time he woke up from it.

Half the bottle of Imodium was gone and Sam waited another twelve hours after the last dose to see if Dean’s body was going to rebel against the bananas and oatmeal he’d been finger-feeding him, and when it seemed all was clear, Sam dragged Dean out of the tub and to the bed. Dean was covered in bruises and smelled of rank sweat and piss, but Sam needed a shower just as badly. He hurried through it, worried about Dean thrashing himself off the bed, but he felt so much better once he was clean.

Sam emerged, damp and half-dressed, to find Dean on the floor. He’d rolled off the bed and was wedged between the bed frames, and somehow had enough strength to fight Sam as he tried to pull him free.

“No! No, no nonono—” he yelled, kicking at Sam’s hold on his ankles, eyes clenched shut.

“Hey! Dean! It’s okay, buddy. I’m not going to hurt you. C’mon, stop, please. Just stop, Dean. You’re safe. Please!” Sam kept talking to him as he dragged him out and into his arms. Dean was naked. Had been for days and days now. Sam had Dean’s clothes, had kept all his bags, confident he was going to find his brother, but there hadn’t been any sense in dressing him. Sam was almost used to it. Almost. As much as he was used to Dean’s random erections and ejaculations. He’d learned to look away, busy himself, read so hard his brain sounded out the words, drowned out the weak moans and sighs his barely conscious brother made as he came on his belly, against the side of the tub. But this was the first time he had Dean in his arms, hard and gasping, panic indistinguishable from arousal, and Sam was utterly exhausted and if he was honest with himself, starved for Dean’s touch.

It was something he didn’t really have words for, but he was raw, stripped, and almost more alone with Dean in this state than he had been without Dean at all, and right now Dean was on his knees between Sam’s own, panting, his body bent backwards so his chest was pressed to Sam’s but his throat was exposed, and the hard line of Dean’s cock was jabbing against the muscles of Sam’s belly, and all Sam could see was a montage of Dean’s smiles, the ones only for Sam. He could feel Dean’s hands on him, patting, punching, checking for injuries, smoothing his hair when he was five and scared of everything. He was so scared now, more than ever before. Scared of what was left of his brother, what had been done to him, and if they were capable of dealing with it.

Sam pulled him closer. He couldn’t help it. One arm wrapped tight around him, he slid his other hand into Dean’s hair, drawing his head forward. With a weak whimper, Dean let his face fall against Sam’s neck. The feel of breath on his skin sent a shiver of pleasure through Sam and he echoed the noise Dean made. Sam closed his eyes, concentrating on his memories and the feel of Dean pressed full length against him.

He’d hardly ever been able to touch Dean back his whole life. He’d been as grabby as any little kid, but at some point Dean started shrugging him off, teasing him about wanting to cuddle or hold hands or hug like chicks, and Sam had glared at him but kept his mouth shut whenever Dean touched him, hypocritical as ever. But right now, he couldn’t make fun of Sam and couldn’t stop him any more than Sam could stop himself. The palm on Dean’s back slid lower, fingertips bumping along Dean’s spine until there wasn’t any left, only a small nub he had to press in deeply to feel. Dean gasped at that, at Sam digging between his ass cheeks, and rocked his hips slightly, dick riding up Sam’s abdomen. Dean was all sour breath and old sweat, was actually gritty with it as Sam rubbed his cheek along Dean’s hairline, his ear, and he hitched him up higher. Bit back a word until it was just a hiss between his teeth when Dean’s cock lifted his t-shirt, slipped over skin along his hip.

Technically, Sam knew what this was. The L-Tyrosine was improving Dean’s blood flow and circulation, increasing his libido. This had nothing to actually do with Sam. He was almost convinced. …And why would he even fucking _want_ it to be about him?

Dean helped his argument not at all. “S _…Sam._ ” Hot, wet, a little mess was sticking his shirt to his ribs and Dean’s palms were pressed to Sam’s chest. Not pushing, just resting there, and the doubled beat of their hearts against each other’s was making Sam lightheaded.

“Hold on, Dean,” Sam whispered against that ear, tasting the salt there. One-handed, he dragged the blankets from the bed to the narrow space between it and the wall, stretching to add his comforter to the pile. Pillows were in there somewhere, and it was good enough for now. He let Dean down on his back in the nest. At least there he couldn’t fall and he was even closer to Sam now, on the floor just a foot away.

The manoeuvre left Sam with a semen-wet wrist where he’d bumped against Dean’s cock, lazily fat and still drooling and Dean’s eyes were mercifully closed because Sam was scarlet and fixated on the smear. He touched it with his left hand and the movement reminded him there was more. Under his shirt, dribbling down his side, and he scooped it up, scraping with his nails to get it all. Already gelling, and Sam spit into the mixture as he dropped onto his bed, ripping at the front of his boxers to free his own cock. A dozen strokes at the most and he was coming hard, head back, lips bloodless between his teeth.

As soon as he could, almost too soon with the way he tripped over his own feet, Sam was up, ruined shirt off and thrown into the bathroom, his fistful of sin clenched at his side while he rushed around, turning off the lights as if the past could be seen with them on, reveal what he’d just done. He followed the shirt into the bathroom and tried not to make a memory of the scent of Dean’s come and his own and spit and motel soap in the hot steam as he washed his hands, but it should have been Dean’s memory he was worried about because when he came out of the bathroom, Dean’s eyes were open, gleaming in the darkness.

“Dean?” A step towards him, and he got a slow blink in response. Another step and Dean twitched. Shivered, pale like a sliver of the moon reflected in a rippled pond. Another shiver, a pitiful whimper when Sam was next to him, over him.

“Shh, Dean, hey, it’s me. You’re okay,” Sam said, gently tugging a blanket from beneath Dean to cover him with. “Just rest, big brother. You’re okay. I’m right here.”

There was no answer, just Dean’s eyes, watching. It occurred to Sam that perhaps Dean _couldn’t_ answer him, that for some reason he was afraid to speak, but Sam didn’t know what to do about that. He wasn’t going to play into Dean’s damage ever again, wasn’t going to test the waters and see if commanding him to speak would make a difference. And he wasn’t going to let Dean think he was going to be hurt again, so he didn’t pull his hand back when Dean flinched as Sam reached out and touched his face.

“Go to sleep, Dean,” he whispered, brushing hair back from his forehead. “You’re safe.”

It was officially dark outside and Sam was officially drunk by the time Dean’s breathing had become deep and even and the tension left his body enough that his head rolled on the bunched up pillow, exposing the white length of his throat. Baring to Sam the place behind his ear he’d pressed his own lips to in a kiss as Dean had come on his skin. Sam touched it again, stretched out on the bed above Dean’s nest. A fingertip at first, but Dean didn’t stir and the alcohol made Sam bold enough to pet that spot, trace the imagined shape of his lips there. It would always be his now, he decided, this little patch of skin. An invisible brand.

Seeking, he found Dean’s pulse, and god, how was it even possible his own was in perfect canon?

He rolled onto his back, belly sloshing fire with the whisky he’d gulped straight from the bottle and he pushed the heel of his hand down over it, regretting his impulsiveness. Why was he _that way_ , anyway? He wasn’t _always_ , was he? No. No, when Dean was around, Sam was calmer, more cautious, preferring to let Dean be the rash one. He was sort of sorry about it right now. How he strove to be polite when Dean was mannerless, understanding when Dean was impatient, indignant when Dean found it in himself to be respectful.

“Asshole,” he muttered, hand over his eyes now. It smelled like Dean, like that place on him.

“Fuck,” Sam groaned, clenching his jaw, trying to stop his own hand even as it moved. He was already half-hard, too-drunk and very scared. That hand, that Dean-stained part of himself, slid under his clothes, wrapped around his cock, and closing his eyes was a very bad idea. Everything tilted, spun. A tornado in his head, scattering what he’d neatly filed away, locked up. Flashing, swirling. Black and white. Latex black, shiny and dangerous. White like Dean’s skin had never been until now. The black began covering the white. The suit Sam had destroyed was engulfing Dean again. Sam didn’t want to see. To imagine. His soggy brain and his dick had different ideas, and he came just as Dean’s mouth opened to accept the huge cock gag and it was Sam’s own hands on the buckles and Dean’s eyes on him.

There was hardly anything to it. He’d already come once and was dehydrated and half-starved even with the food Ruby had brought, and his mind righted itself with a sickening suddenness, a falling sensation he could only ground by dropping his hand, the one not still shoved down the front of his underwear, to Dean’s chest. Cool skin, the soft rhythm of his brother’s heart. Not racing like his own; what he had just imagined had set fire to his insides and gotten him off like digging out a bullet.

A bullet.

God, how many times he’d thought about it.

How close he’d gotten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [illustration ](http://silver9mm.tumblr.com/post/144542789845) by [hellhoundsprey](http://archiveofourown.org/users/hellhoundsprey/pseuds/hellhoundsprey)


	6. Chapter 6

 

 

_There is a gun under your chin and Dean is draped over your back, his mouth speaking directly into your own, your neck craned around to let him. You’re both hard. He’s right up against your asshole while you are left hanging, neglected and obscene in your lust._

_“Let’s do it. Let me. I’ll eat the bullet right out of your mouth, Sammy.”_

_There is already blood somewhere. You can smell it. It’s his; there’s a wound at his chest and you can see his heart. His hands are on yours. You’re holding the gun, he’s holding you; he’s caressing the trigger and you are jealous of it. Want those fingers on your face, between your lips, in your mouth. On your cock, in your ass. You want to suck his cock and it becomes the gun, and his tongue and the bitter metal are in you at the same time. His twitching fingers on the trigger are ringed around your cock and there’s no difference between coming and the explosion of the bullet behind his eyes and Dean is laughing in your ear—_

“Sam?”

Sam woke to a gentle tug on his fingers and his brother saying his name softly.

“Dean. God. Yeah, I’m here.” He scrambled to the floor in front of Dean.

“W-where am I?”

It seemed painful for him to move his eyes, to look around the room. Looking for something, Sam thought. Or someone. He put his hand on Dean’s leg to pull his focus back. “You’re safe, Dean. I got you out.”

“I remember,” he said, and then he twitched, eyes huge, mouth working. “I-I-I’m sorry—”

“What? No, Dean, it’s okay, really. It’s all over with.”

“Over?” Dean’s voice was low, gravelly with disuse, and he looked skeptical: brows together, peering almost cautiously at Sam.

“Hey, we’re gonna shower you, okay? You’re pretty disgusting.”

“Everything hurts.”

“I know. You came down hard.”

Sam pushed himself up and stretched, the tension of the last week easing with his brother lying awake and talking at last. He leaned over and put his hands out. Hesitantly, Dean took them. On his feet, Dean wavered, so Sam kept a grip on him until he was steady, but Dean wouldn’t release his hold.

“Dean?”

He seemed a child. Filthy, gaunt, the only colour to him his blooming eyes and the freckles that looked like dust on porcelain. He squinted at Sam, his pupils going large to pinpoint by the second as if his brain was having trouble recognising who he was looking at, and Sam knew if he left Dean alone he would just sit back down and wait. For what, forever, lost.

Dean gasped as Sam pulled him in and hugged him. He was all bones and dry skin, sweat-matted hair and sour smell, and Sam wanted to sob. Wanted to stand there and cry as if _he_ were the child, like he hadn’t cried since he was a toddler and still missed his dad when John would disappear for days at a time. Dean would hold him, pressing Sam’s head against his shoulder as Sam was doing to him now, and for all the world, for all the pain they’d go through, Sam would have given anything at that moment to be children again, to be as far away from what had been done to Dean in the last year as they could get.

“C’mon,” Sam managed around the sharp knot in his throat, stepping back and tugging Dean gently with him.

In the bathroom, Dean asked, “Can I piss?”

“Yeah, man. You can do whatever you want. Anything. Dean, look at me.”

The way Dean’s eyes immediately flashed to his made Sam’s palms hot.

“N-not like that. I mean—you don’t have to ask me to do anything, okay? You’re free. You do whatever you want.”

“Free,” Dean repeated, as if trying a word in a foreign language for the first time, and stood there and looked at him.

“What is it?” Sam asked.

“You said I’m yours now.”

“Fuck. Dean, listen to me. I said that because I had to get you up and out of there. You wouldn’t listen to me otherwise. Nobody owns you. Not me, not anyone else. You’re my brother, and I was so fucking worried about you. Do you know how long I’ve been looking for you?”

“No.”

“Really?”

Dean shook his head, eyes downcast and upper lip trembling, and Sam knew he had scared him somehow. He debated for a moment even telling him, wondering if it was a good idea for Dean to know how much time he’d lost.

“Ten months,” he said slowly and waited for Dean to absorb it. There was a little frown, and his eyes darted around before meeting Sam’s. “You’ve been gone for ten months. It’s a new year. It’s almost your birthday.”

“Okay.” Dean breathed the word out, and Sam was sure it was with some disbelief.

“Dean, how much do you remember?”

“About what, sir?”

“Oh my god.” Sam’s stomach flipped and he put a hand to his mouth. It smelled like Dean, like sweat and fear and, somehow, like frost. Like the inside of a freezer too long without a thaw. “Nothing. It’s okay, Dean. We’ll talk later, alright? Lemme help you.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Sam couldn’t help it. He grabbed Dean’s face, fingers pinching his cheeks. Dean’s mouth opened obediently and his eyes closed. There was a click of metal on teeth as his tongue slid out and Sam had the distinct impression Dean expected him to spit into his mouth.

“Dean! Look at me.”

Thin blades of green appeared beneath his lashes, but his tongue remained out.

”Don’t call me ‘sir’. Call me Sam or Sammy, okay? Like you used to. I’m your brother, nothing else.” He let go of Dean’s face and stepped back, his heart racing.

“Okay. Sam.”

“Please. Just. Get in the shower.”

When Dean made no move towards the shower, Sam swore under his breath and grabbed his arm. Dean’s reaction was instantaneous, and everything changed for Sam. Everything he thought he was capable of, what he believed he had control over, things he hadn’t ever felt before, just everything, was pitched into the air and fell around him in tatters when Dean flinched and dropped to his knees, palms flat on the floor, head hanging, back arched, ass up, and just that fast, Sam was hard.

He loved Dean. He thought Dean was funny and smart and strong and brave. He was handsome and silly and sly, and Sam owed him _so much_. Times uncountable Dean had saved him, had taught him, fought for him. Dean was still all of those things, and he was at Sam’s feet, presenting himself, beautiful and damaged, and Sam suddenly wanted to cover his brother’s body with his own, protect him and hold him and make him feel good. Give him pleasure where he’d only had pain for months now.

How long he stood over Dean he had no idea. His mouth was dry, his hands clenched so hard his palms ached where he was digging his nails into them, and every short, quick breath seemed to pump more blood into his cock until it was aching as well. Dean was perfectly still, and Sam knew he had to be the one to move, and had to do it carefully. He swallowed, choked on it, tried again, licked his lips, but couldn’t find his voice. Slowly, he crouched down.

“God, Dean,” he whispered, “don’t. Don’t do this.”

”I’m sorry, s—Sam.”

Ignoring his dick caught awkwardly in his jeans, he scooted closer and reached for Dean’s face. Cupping his cheek, he pulled Dean up to his knees and into his arms.

“ _I’m_ sorry, Dean. I’m having a hard time understanding this, is all. Let me help you.”

There was no answer, but Dean didn’t resist when Sam held him, and he didn’t let go until he felt Dean relax into it, and not until his own body had calmed. His heart was still pounding, and he still would fight Heaven and Hell and the devil himself to protect Dean, but his cock had given up its traitorous interest for now.

Sam got Dean standing again and turned on the shower. Dean shifted behind him, crossing his arms over his chest and Sam wanted to touch him, to hold him up because Dean looked ready to drop, but Sam didn’t trust himself, his reactions. Instead, he concentrated on the new scars on his brother’s chest as the water warmed. They were large, puncture wounds of some sort, and paired up, spaced evenly apart he noticed now, as if something had been pushed in and out of Dean’s skin repeatedly. Like needles. No, the marks were too big. His fingers, without his wanting them to, brushed over the scars, over the once thick pectoral muscles.

“What happened here?”

“Suspension.”

“Suspension? Like, they hung you?”

“Yeah.”

“How?”

“Hooks under the muscle.”

“Why?”

“I dunno. Master liked it.”

“Master… Jesus christ, Dean. That’s who you were with when I got you out? You were next to him, on the floor. Right?”

“Uh huh.”

A mixture of relief and whatever the feeling was that he wanted to kill the man a thousand more times washed over Sam, but he clamped his teeth down on more questions and steered his brother towards the shower. Once in the tub, Dean swayed, what little strength he had waning. Sam, seeing no other option, asked him to sit. Obediently, Dean knelt.

“No, no. On your butt. C’mon, man, your knees will hurt if you stay like that.”

Dean scooted around, sitting with his legs loosely crossed, knees leaning on the edge of the tub and the wall. Sam angled the shower head down low, and when Dean just sat there, eyes half-closed against the mist, Sam sighed. The floor would end up soaked, but Dean needed his help.

They’d done this before. One or the other hurt badly enough to need help in the bath, they’d scrubbed at each other, bitching lightheartedly to stifle fear at the injuries beneath blood and grime, pushing hands away and ribbing each other about the chill in the air. It was different this time. Dean closed his eyes and put his head down as Sam gently sloughed away the days of acrid sweat and flakes of come from his body. He leaned forward without being asked when Sam began to wash his shoulders and tilted his face up when Sam smoothed the cloth over his cheeks, wiping away the traces of tears and snot and saliva.

“Did someone bathe you?” Sam asked.

“Yeah.”

“Why? I want you to explain things to me. If you can. Full sentences, buddy.”

“I wasn’t allowed to be by myself.”

“Dean. Why?”

“I’m sorry. I tried to kill myself. And other people. After that, I always had someone with me. Another pet washed me, but she was always with a guard.”

“Pet?”

Dean wiped his hand over his eyes and frowned before answering, and for a moment he seemed like the old Dean, like Sam’s mischievous, crazy brother. When he glanced back at Sam the illusion was gone. Mostly. For the first time since Sam had found him in that hell hole, Dean actually looked at Sam, not through him. His eyes focused and Dean seemed to take in Sam’s face: his eyes, his forehead, hair, down his jaw, his neck, and Sam swallowed compulsively.

“That’s what I was, Sam. Master’s pet. I still have to piss.”

“Oh. Man, sorry. Here, just do it in the tub, I’ll, uh—”

But Dean was already urinating. Dark yellow and smelling like rancid butter, and Sam turned away, holding his breath until it was done, worrying about renal failure. He didn’t ask any more questions, just leaned into the tub and washed his brother’s legs. Dean’s eyes closed and he relaxed back, lines of exhaustion showing on his face. He didn’t react when Sam experimentally ran the soapy cloth over his lower belly, just above his cock, So, as quickly and gently as he could, he washed Dean there, careful of the chafed skin where the cage had rubbed him, and then down between his parted legs. Sam swiveled the shower head up and the soap and filth slid away from Dean, then he shut the water off.

“C’mon,” Sam said, “let’s get you up and dried off and back to bed, huh?”

Dean made it halfway to his feet. He let out a moan and flung his head back, and if Sam hadn’t had an arm around his ribs he would have crashed down into the tub, unconscious. There was nothing to do but scoop him up. He weighed next to nothing.

For a moment, Sam simply stood in the soggy bathroom, his dripping, unconscious brother in his arms, and he prayed.


	7. Chapter 7

Dean slept for another day after that, but it was an easy sleep, and substantially cleaner and calmer than before. In fact, he hardly moved. Sam knew because he stayed awake for the twenty hours Dean slept. Eighteen hours into it, he called Ruby.

The air outside couldn’t be called fresh but it was less stale than the motel room. He could see Dean through the crack in the curtains, though his eyes watered so much at first in the winter mid-morning sunshine he couldn’t really make out anything at first, but he’d been staring at Dean for…ever, really. He wasn’t going to stop now. He couldn’t stop his brain, either. There were things he needed to know.

They would have to wait. Ruby was done being patient.

“Lilith is moving fast, Sam. She’s breaking Seals left and right and this isn’t going to wait for your brother to get out of adult diapers, okay? So stop fucking around and wasting time!”

“ _Fine._ ” He hated that he sounded petulant, that he’d gotten involved with someone as bossy as Dean had ever been. “Who’s Lilith, for starters?”

“Your little game of What’s Behind Door Number One back in Wyoming? Yeah, well, you let more than just the Magnificent Seven out. Lilith is Queen Bitch. She was Lucifer’s pet project back in the day and she’s out now and taking up the reins. That yellow-eyed demon, Azazel? He was Elmer Fudd compared to Lilith, get it? I know, boo-hoo, he wrecked your family; she’s a home-wrecker, too, Sam. Home as in, everyone’s home. _The world_.”

“O-okay,” Sam replied, the alarm in Ruby’s voice focusing him. In the room, Dean had rolled onto his stomach and Sam traced the sharp line of his shoulders down to the dip in his back and over the swell of his ass under the thin sheet. “So. Uh, so, Seals? Like, the Seven Seals in the Bible?”

“Yeah, _no._ More like six hundred and sixty-six Seals and Lilith only needs to break sixty-six of them.”

“Are there any broken already?”

“About twenty.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Yeah. So you can understand my eagerness for you to stop playing doctor and get your shit together and back to training with me.”

“What more do I have to do, Ruby? I can pull demons out now, I can send them back to Hell for good—”

“You know, it’s Lilith’s fault Dean ended up a gimp.”

“ _What_?”

“That sexy grandpa’s heart you broke in there? His name was Alastair and Lilith had been trying to recruit him for a long time. Dean was sort of a…gift to him, to prove her sincerity. He was gonna be her number one lieutenant, shortcut through the ranks to Court Executioner. She almost had him, but you ruined that and she’s pretty pissed off at you, by the way.”

“Where is she?”

If he hadn’t been seeing red, seeing Dean on his knees with that leering man next to him, imagining—god, the things he could imagine—what this Alistair had done to Dean, made Dean do, Sam might have heard the triumph in the silence, in the brief pause before Ruby answered, in the smile shaping the words she said next.

“I can take you right to her, Sam. But not now. You need to come to me. You’re not strong enough.”

Sam swallowed, copper-coated memory making his throat slick and his mouth hot. “But it’s only been—”

“You’re not strong enough, Sammy. Not for this. Not to fight Lilith and win. Fight and _live_.”

“I-I can’t. Dean—”

“I’ll come to you, then. I’ll be _real_ quiet.”

“Ruby, no, wait—”

“Stop telling me no,” Ruby hissed and shoved him. Sam yelped, startled by her sudden appearance. He slapped his hand against the window to keep his balance and the noise roused Dean. He lifted his head from the pillow and looked towards Sam, squinting into the strip of light.

“Stay here,” Sam growled at her. She crossed her arms and glared back, but let him go into the motel without protest. Sam threw a glance out the window. The demoness was hidden behind the curtain; if Dean had seen anything, it had only been Sam’s silhouette.

“Dean, hey man, sorry I woke you up. Are you okay?”

“No. So much, no.” He buried his face into the crook of his arm and groaned.

“What can I do? Can I get you anything?”

A shake of bed-messy hair. Sam stalled, not wanting to leave, not wanting to disappoint Ruby, not wanting to do the wrong thing. But he’d made promises. And he wanted revenge.

“Dean, I gotta go for just a minute? Need to run and check on something. I won’t be far, and you’re safe here. You listening to me?”

“M’yeah, Sam. ’Kay.”

“I’m gonna put your gun under the other pillow. I’ll be right back, I swear. Don’t go anywhere.”

“Mmnnuht.”

Sam grinned at that, and how fucking long had it been since he’d smiled? He hazarded a touch to Dean’s head, smoothing unruly hair from his ear.

“Right back, Dean.”

The Impala’s keys in his pocket, he shut the motel door behind him quietly and stalked past Ruby, knowing she’d follow.

“You haven’t asked the most important question yet!” she called to him, scampering to keep up with his long strides.

“What happens when Lilith breaks the Seals?”

Lucifer would happen. Sam had to kill the most powerful demon on either side of Hell to keep a fallen angel from starting Armageddon. And to do all of that, he needed demon blood, and lots of it.

He hated all of it. Himself more than anything.

“You’re not a monster, Sam. Shh,” Ruby pursed her bloody lips against his, words slurred over her hard-bitten tongue, “you’re not. You’re perfect and strong and no one else in the whole world can do what you can do. You’re the savior—”

“Don’t,” he interrupted, letting his head fall back, away from her. She tried to chase him, to rise up on her knees, but he held her down by her shoulders even as he thrust into her as far as he could with his thighs under the steering wheel. She had crawled into his lap as soon as he’d pulled the car behind the abandoned Episcopalian church, skirt around her hips, tights torn at the crotch, her wrist already open and pulsing blood, cooing to him about upping his dosage, his tolerance level, and trick of the eye or one of hers, she actually looked a little pale when he couldn’t stand to swallow any more.

“You’re _good_. So good. You can do this. You have to. We need you!”

His heart was a walking drum and, not for the first time, he thought about exorcising Ruby. As she panted and bucked her slim little body on his, it would be so easy to grab a handful of her toxic waste soul and jerk it out of the dead girl she was living in and then he’d be done with this. He could go back to Dean, concentrate on healing him and they could have their life back. Their life of killing demons like this one orgasming in his lap, and hopefully he’d have Dean strong enough to help fight the devil when the time came.

“When I take down Lilith, then what?” he asked, feeling ten feet tall and ready to come again. Every inhalation was pure energy and his muscles were aching for action, for anything other than sitting here and watching Ruby staunch the flow at her wrist with take-out napkins from the glove box. She shrugged, licked blood from her upper lip.

“The next baddy in the queue takes her place. But nobody else I know of has the juice to open Lucifer’s Cage.”

“The next one… It’s never gonna fucking end, is it?”

Ruby looked at him. In her weakness, her eyes were flickering black. “Well, now that you mention it, there are ways to put the lid on Hell. There are a few spells out there, but they’re probably at the bottom of a volcano at this point. You could destroy the Devil’s Gates, but good luck finding them all. The way _I_ would do it is from the inside.”

“The inside?” Right now, Sam felt like he could rip Hell apart with his bare hands. He clenched them around the steering wheel. They didn’t look right there. Dean belonged in the driver’s seat, Sam at his side flipping through lore books or making notes. A demon in the car was definitely out of place.

“Sure,” Ruby hummed, mouth cleaned of blood, lip gloss reapplied. “Whoever is head honcho there can shut it down. Keep the minions from pestering the living, stop collecting souls. I mean, they’d still show up, but on their own, by their own faults, but the ruler of Hell, well, makes the rules and if they said going topside was a no-no, we’d all have to follow orders.”

Sam frowned and jerked away from Ruby’s attempt at spit-bathing his cheek free of her blood. He scrubbed at it with his palm and started the Impala. Dean couldn’t be left alone for very much longer. “Yeah, well, that’ll never happen, right? Why would a demon or, or a fallen angel or whatever, do something like that?”

“Most of them wouldn’t. Would take a special case. Someone who remembered being human better than the others.”

“Remembered being human? What do you mean? Demons used to be human?”

“Duh. Can’t believe you never put that together.”

They were still parked, the engine rumbling as hard as Sam’s pulse. He stared at Ruby and she stared back. He knew she was watching his gears turn. She’d always been able to read him pretty well, a fact that should have unnerved him but he secretly liked. He’d always been good at hiding his thoughts, keeping his secrets, even from Dean for the most part, but for some reason, Ruby seemed to understand him, was able to gauge his moods, and as much as she was a shit-talker, she was engaging. She encouraged him to ask questions, waited for him patiently to work things out, goaded him when he was stubborn and reassured him when he needed it the most but could never ask for it.

“You were human,” he said slowly. “You remember?”

“I do. Why do you think I care what happens up here so much? Care about _you_ , Sam?”

“I don’t… I just didn’t think that was the reason. I didn’t know.”

“Well, there you go. Now you know. And if I had my way, I’d seal up Hell and leave people here alone. Hunters do more damage to the ranks than is worth it, in my opinion. But I’m a nobody. Best I can do is help you keep everything from going to the dogs completely. Lucifer gets out, no more fun for anyone. He’ll wreck the planet just for being here.”

“Jesus christ.”

“Ain’t got nothing to do with this. Anyway, so now you see? It’s fucking important you stop dicking around and we kill Lilith to keep all that from happening.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

“Good boy,” she said, and leaned over, lightning-quick, and kissed him. “I gotta go, tiger. Two days, I’ll be back. Gotta keep you topped off for now until we can get something bigger going.”

“Bigger?”

But she was gone, just like that, and Sam rolled down the windows on both sides to let the sulphursex smell out of the car as he drove to the motel, his own questions forgotten for the time being.


	8. Chapter 8

Dean was awake when he got back. Sitting up, looking like a bruise in human form. He’d found underwear and a clean t-shirt, was perched on the edge of the bed and Sam had the feeling Dean had tried to get up and move around but hadn’t been strong enough. He smiled at Sam when he came through the door, but even that took too much effort to hold for long.

“Hey, man. So, uh, y’know, thanks. For coming to get me. Where are we, anyway?” Dean asked, and the rough sound of his voice Sam had taken for disuse, he was suddenly sure was permanent damage. From screaming.

“Pennsylvania. Essington, I think. I wanted to keep going, but you were in pretty bad shape.” He moved towards Dean as he spoke. Wanted to grab him and hug him now that Dean was coherent. Instead, he edged around his brother and sat on the other bed, noting how Dean had dropped his head, made himself smaller as Sam approached. “Can I get you anything? Are you hungry?”

“No, s—Sam. I—can we just go? We’ll get something later. I-I—” That fast and he was starting to panic, twisting the sheet in his fingers and blinking rapidly.

“Hey. Yeah, Dean. We’ll go. Here, I’ve got all your things. Get dressed, I’ll get our stuff to the car.” He tossed a duffle on the bed next to Dean and scavenged around quickly and efficiently for the rest of their belongings. In twenty minutes, he had the car loaded and Dean in a hoodie and jeans following him out of the motel. He left the suit he’d worn on the rescue mission behind as a tip.

They headed southwest and Sam drove. Dean didn’t even pretend he wanted to, slouching down in the passenger seat and closing his eyes as they hit the interstate heading away from the worst of the winter weather. He might have been asleep, but Sam didn’t think so. He kept quiet and snuck the occasional glance at Dean when he could.

“Dude, quit staring.”

“Sorry. It’s just so weird.”

“What is?” Dean was talking with his eyes still closed. Hood up, knees on the dash, he looked like a teenager almost. The ring through his septum added to the illusion.

“That piercing.”

Green-light-go eyes opened and it was a good thing Dean had taught him to steer with his fist, aiming the car in a straight line like a bullet, knuckles first, because Sam couldn’t look away for a long time. Dean’s expression was unreadable edging on dangerous but Sam liked it better than Dean being scared.

“How long have you had it?”

Dean shrugged. “Long enough I got used to it. Which is good I guess because I don’t know how to get it off without taking a hacksaw to my face.”

“A jeweler, I bet. They would have tools, you know, for cutting through rings.”

“Yeah,” Dean said, but it didn’t sound like he was interested.

Half a dozen exits passed by in silence. Dean’s eyes were still open, his face still unfathomable. Sam felt like there was some kind of canyon between them. His palms itched, wanted to touch, to reach across the distance and pull Dean to his side. His heart was beating fast and he wondered if Dean’s was the same. He was half-hard, full of excess blood and sensitive and his brain took that somewhere he didn’t intend and his mouth started talking even as he tried to bury the thought.

“Are you gonna keep that tongue—”

“Sammy, what happened to me?”

“What? What do you mean?”

“I mean, the last thing I remember is leaving Bobby’s house for SoCal, and then nothing. Nada, until I wake up to some sweaty Lucha Libre shoving a tube in my dick and my face all full of metal—which had healed, by the way, and that takes what, weeks? What the fuck? What the fuck happened? Where were you?”

Sam’s instinct was to bristle at the accusation there, but Dean couldn’t possibly blame him more than he blamed himself.

“To be honest, Dean, I don’t know. We made it to L.A. and split up on the case, and you just disappeared. A few hours of radio silence from you that I let fly before I started searching. At first, I figured you bought a star map and hopped the fence at J-Lo’s house or something for a while.”

Dean twitched his decorated nose. “Sounds like me. Okay, fine. But you said, like, almost a _year_? Did you get tired of looking or what?”

“ _No_. Fuck, man, I never stopped looking! Not for one day! Jesus, Dean, you don’t even know, okay? The shit I went through, what I tried, who I—”

“Alright, Sammy. Don’t start bawling, okay? I just wish I could remember.”

Sam relaxed his death-grip on the steering wheel and looked at Dean again. His brother was staring at the dash vacantly, chewing on his bottom lip.

“What… What, uh, _do_ you remember? I mean—”

Dean shook his head. “Nothin’,” he said too quickly to be the truth.

“Dean…”

A glare, and Sam looked back at the road, away from the memories making Dean’s fists clench, his eyes go glassy, his cheeks flushed in his pale face. Another mile passed.

“You hungry?” Sam asked.

“I, uh. I dunno. I guess? I don’t know, Sam. I don’t— _fuck_!” Suddenly, Dean slammed his fist down on the dashboard.

“Hey, hey, Dean, man, you’re okay. I’m right here—” Sam put his hand on Dean’s shoulder, trying to reassure him.

It was the wrong thing to do, but Sam couldn’t have known and Dean’s reaction almost wrecked the car. He flinched so hard Sam’s hand was flung away and then he lunged towards Sam, screaming, his jaw clenched around it, teeth bared and Sam stomped on the gas, reflexes trying to get him away from the creature in his brother’s body. It couldn’t be Dean coming at him, ready to rip at his face, making a noise only a rabid wolf should be capable of.

The wheel was lost in favour of the gun in his jacket, but was caught again with both hands as the car jumped at seventy into the other lane, almost against a truck already using that space. Horns sounded and Sam had to take his eyes off Dean so they wouldn’t both die, had to get the car down an exit ramp, into a closed weigh station and safely stopped.

“Dean!”

He hadn’t followed through, had thrown himself face down on the seat, the scream dying weak in his throat. Now he was curled over his own knees, not shaking so much as creaking, straining so hard his breath was being forced out in groans. Sam didn’t touch him this time, but god, he wanted to. Wanted to pull Dean against him and hold him like he had when he’d nursed Dean through withdrawals, held him when he’d been too weak to stand. When he’d come on Sam’s body. He wanted so badly, and some crazy part of his brain, hyperactive from demon blood and adrenaline, seemed convinced of power over Dean when he eventually pushed himself up only to collapse to his left, onto Sam, shoulder digging into Sam’s ribs, head on Sam’s chest.

“Dean, hey,” he breathed, “I got you. You’re safe. We’re in the car. You’re with me and no one’s gonna hurt you. No one’s gonna touch you, I promise. I’m sorry I startled you. We can do whatever you want when you’re ready. Stop somewhere, keep driving, whatever.”

Sam knew about PTSD. They both already had it to some extent: nightmares, mood swings, insomnia, flashbacks. But this… Prolonged torture. Rape. Starvation. And that was only what was obvious to Sam. He didn’t know what to do. The usual solutions of drinking, fucking chicks, hunting away the hurts wasn’t going to work for Dean. Well, maybe…

“Hey, you wanna hear something?”

No answer. Dean’s eyes were shut tight and his body jerked, twitching, muscles tight and he sounded like he was breathing in more than out, so Sam just kept talking. He told Dean about a hunt he’d done in Tennessee, a black dog that had taken to chasing the tires of a particular politician’s town car.

“Turns out Mr. Deschain’s driver had the body of her lover’s wife in a cooler in the trunk of the car,” Sam chuckled. Dean sniffed. “Well, I guess it was funny at the time. She kept putting the car in the ditch because of the dog in the road.”

“Y’don’t swerve,” Dean mumbled into Sam’s shoulder. “Dad said. Jus’ hit it.”

“Yeah. That’s right. Remember when you hit those two deer in White Lake? Didn’t even leave a dent in Baby, just knocked the headlights out. We had venison for weeks. I can’t believe how good it was chicken fried.”

Another sniff and Dean finally rolled off, put his back to the seat. He scrubbed his hands over his face a few times, stretched his legs under the dash. Peered up at Sam.

“We can go.”

“Okay, Dean.”

They went, and they didn’t stop for a long time. Days and nights, Sam drove them. He tooled around the Midwest for a while, then the deserts and up through central California into Oregon and back down just to give Dean the view of the ocean on his side of the car. They stopped to piss, but Sam learned that was best to do at rest stops. Even better, off the side of the road. He’d tried fast food joints, but Dean had refused to get out of the car, had petulantly locked the doors and pulled his hood up and ignored Sam knocking at his window. When Sam got them food, Dean would only eat maybe a quarter of it. Sam tried different things, had the best of luck with fries and strawberry shakes. He brought Dean burgers, but he’d throw them out the window. The stud through Dean’s tongue went the same way after Dean bit down on it nibbling on a burrito somewhere in New Mexico.

“Didn’t have to chew much with that in,” he said, though Sam hadn’t asked a question, had pointedly ignored what had just happened. “Had a fucking tube up my nose at dinner time.”

Sam still kept quiet. He learned to let Dean reveal details as it suited him. Otherwise, pressed, Dean would flip. Lash out, verbally or physically. At Sam, at walls, throw whatever was closest to him. At Sam, the television, mirrors. He wrecked two motel rooms before Sam figured it was safer and cheaper and much easier on Dean if they slept in the car. It was the only place Dean really relaxed, so long as Sam didn’t question him. Hours of silence between them would have bothered Sam in the past, but now he was just so fucking glad to have Dean with him it didn’t matter, though on some level he knew it was a tell to how fucked up Dean was, how deeply damaged, that he wasn’t running off at the mouth like he used to. No matter how upset, pissed off, hurt, whatever Dean had ever been, one constant was his ability to hide it all under inane chatter. Somehow that had been taken from him, along with his love of food, his desire to drive, to be in control of anything really. And his fearlessness.

He was terrified. Awake or asleep, there was no difference and no relief from it. He sweated and yelped and flinched. Sounds, people coming too close to him, being left alone, any one thing could reduce him to a pale, trembling child. The only thing that didn’t seem to cause him stress was being in the car with Sam, driving nowhere. Sam would talk sometimes and Dean listened, asked questions though he wouldn’t answer Sam’s. Sam let it slide, metered out tales of what he’d been doing, where searching for Dean had taken him, the hunts he’d done that were in his path. Carefully, though. Avoiding anything that had to do with Ruby.

She found them finally, showing up at a rest stop just inside the tip of Texas. Dean was asleep in the backseat of the Impala and Sam was walking off six hours of driving, doing circles around the deserted pull-off parking lot when she stepped out from behind the concrete restrooms and waved him over.

“You’re a hard one to catch up with, Sammy,” she said, her lips a suggestive colour that matched her g-string and her nails and her blood and Sam almost blacked out as he paid her what he owed her for the invitation that got him Dean back. Saw stars as he came, left blood smears and teeth marks and bruises on her breasts, but when he could breathe again, had pulled himself together and wiped away the evidence, he asked the questions he’d been obsessing over for days now.

He waited for her to come out of the bathroom, sitting on a picnic table mostly made of dry rot. Facing the car across the way, he would be able to see Dean if he stirred before Dean saw him. He doubted that would happen, though. Dean’s screams were very loud in the small space and Sam hadn’t protested picking him up another bottle of Valium to help him get to and stay asleep. Ruby appeared eventually, washed in rusted water. Instead of next to him, she sat on the other side of the table and put her back to his, rolling her head against his shoulders, crushing the scent of amber and sulphur and his sweat out of her hair.

“Ruby, how long did you know where Dean was before you told me?”

“Oh, a couple weeks. They kept moving him around—”

“What do you mean? There are more places like that? Where?”

“All over. It’s sort of a chain.”

“Oh my god.” He felt Ruby shrug against his back.

“It would have been easier to nab him in transit, but he must have been heavily warded—”

“Wait. Ruby, you knew _where he was._ You knew who had him from the beginning, didn’t you?”

For once she didn’t answer him immediately, didn’t have some snippy comment, and Sam knew the truth before she answered. He wondered if she could feel her own blood in him heating with the urge to kill.

“I _kinda_ knew, Sam. Yeah, okay? But it didn’t matter!” she insisted, shuffling around to her knees and leaning over his back, arms around his neck. He wanted to snap hers. “I couldn’t get a fix on them. Not until I figured out you were being tracked.”

He bristled at that.

“That’s when I gave you the hex bag.”

“More than a month ago…”

“Uh huh. I caught up with him in New York. I couldn’t have you running around on a wild goose chase. You were doing so good, were so focused!” She nosed into his hair, spoke softly into his ear. “I’m sorry, Sam,” she said, and she _never_ said that. “I know, baby. I did the best I could. Look, you just take him up to that old man’s house and I’ll come see you there in a few days, huh? There’s something I want to show you, and he obviously needs a babysitter.”

“Ruby, wait. How—how did you know he was gonna be in _there_? In that room?”

He felt her shrug again, and then her mouth, her black cherry lips, were sticking to the hairs on his neck and she kissed him between words. “Lucky guess. I knew Alastair had a fetish and I figured he would be there that night, ’cause it’s a show that only happens once in awhile.”

He caught her by the hair, yanked her away from his neck so he could see her face, watch her snarl as her eyes went dark. “What do you mean?”

“ _Ow._ Let go.” He did and she slipped off the table and smoothed her hair before crossing her arms over her chest. “It’s how they cull the herd, dummy.”

Sam’s stomach dropped. “They were gonna—”

“No, not Dean. He was there to do the culling, Sam. He—why don’t you ask him about the details, huh?” She nodded her head towards the car. He saw movement and stood. Ruby pouted, plush mouth drawn down the same as when it was wrapped around his cock.

“I’ll see you later, Sam.”

“Ruby—”

But she was gone, and Sam actually felt a little bad. He was being rude to her lately when she’d done nothing but help him. Maybe Bobby’s was a good idea. Dean couldn’t stay locked up in the car for the rest of his life, and the old hunter might know what to do; _something_ to get Dean back on his feet.

Sam was on his own feet and trotting across the parking lot. The only light in this place was from needling stars overhead and a bug-encrusted bare bulb on the far side of the restrooms, so his shadow made no difference as he came up to the car. And then he wondered if it would have if Dean _had_ seen it. His brother was jerking off. He’d pushed himself up a little, leaning on the door, the back of his head against the window, but Sam was tall enough to see over it and down where Dean’s right hand was wrapped around his cock and moving. A short, hard rhythm, choked up tight under the head. Dean had teased his balls out of his jeans but left them lying there, pooled loose and heavy. His left hand was tucked to his chest, fingers tapping over that spot where the necklace Sam had given him and he’d lost in the last year, been taken from him, used to lay.

He should have turned around and walked away. Not like he’d never seen this before, like he hadn’t seen worse recently. Maybe that was the problem, maybe that kept him rooted to the spot as Dean got himself off: this was so normal, so healthy and Sam kind of needed that. Needed to see Dean sane and regular.

But when Dean came carefully in his own hand and then licked it fucking clean, something else entirely made Sam wait for Dean to pull himself together, his pants closed, before he knocked his hip into the back of the car and got in. Handed Dean a water bottle and after he had taken a drink, Sam took it back and drank from it himself. Dean almost protested, but then _didn’t_ , and Sam could taste his brother’s come. Or imagined he could. _Wanted_ to, and god they needed to get out of this car.


	9. Chapter 9

It wasn’t a hard drive to South Dakota, but Sam made it last a couple days. Went west again into the desert and then up. The wide open spaces kept Dean calm and lucid. Sam noticed somewhere along the way that tall buildings, crowds, constant motion of a city outside the car seemed to upset his brother, made him withdraw into himself, and he’d just got Dean talking again in Texas and didn’t want to ruin it.

“How is Bobby?” Dean asked when Sam had suggested they head that way. As if it was his idea.

“Good. Y’know. He’s Bobby. He was looking for you, too. Helping me. He’s been searching for the Colt, but hasn’t had any luck so far.”

“Mm.” And that was it for another five hours. And then, “We’re gonna hunt again.”

Sam couldn’t tell if it was a question or a statement to himself accidentally made out loud, or what. “Yeah. Yeah, Dean. Of course, man. Whenever you’re up to it.”

“You got anything?”

Of course he did. Lilith, and all the demons in between her and them. And Ruby. Maybe he’d been hoping to do all that on the sly, to never have to tell Dean about it, but like lead to the gut, he suddenly knew he had no choice.

“Dean,” he started. Coughed. Wait, wait. He couldn’t tell Dean _everything._ Okay… “I, uh. How I found you. I-I had help.”

“What—what, like, another hunter?” Dean’s voice rose in pitch on the last word, and Sam’s heart sank with another realisation. Dean was embarrassed. He didn’t want anyone who didn’t have to to know what happened to him. Somehow, Sam knew this would be worse.

“No… A, um. Ruby.” And he half expected her to pop into the car at the sound of her name, and checked the rearview into the back seat a couple of times before he went on. “Ruby,” he repeated, “is a, uh, demon.”

“What the fuck, Sam.”

“No, I know. But just listen? She showed up and said she’d help—”

“What, out of the goodness of her little black heart?”

Not exactly. “Kind of. Look, Dean, it’s a long story. She did help. I wouldn’t have found you when I did without her. She knew where you were when I had no idea—”

“Yeah, Sam, ’cause there were fucking demons _there_.” Dean was glaring at him, half-turned in his seat, angrier than Sam had seen him recently, and the fucked up thing was, Sam liked it. Another real emotion, a glimpse of the old Dean: angry, impatient, and Sam suddenly wanted a fight just to wring more emotion out of Dean, just to have more of his brother the way he had been before. “She was probably in on the whole thing—”

“No, Dean. She wasn’t.”

“Oh, what, you trusted her? That’s fucked, Sammy. Where is she now? You fucking sent her skank ass back to Hell, right?”

“She’s not—no, I didn’t. Dean—”

“Why the fuck not?”

“Dean, dude, shut the fuck up for a second, huh? Let me fucking talk.”

“Sam—”

“ _Dean_.”

He sighed loudly and turned away, faced forward, crossed his arms over his chest and focused his fury on the road.

“For whatever reason, she doesn’t have any love for other demons, okay? She helped me _kill_ a lot of them.” Sam snuck a glance at Dean, hoping he could get away without details about that for now. Dean’s eyebrow twitched but that was all. Good. “She tracked you down for me, too.”

“In exchange for what?” Dean spit.

Sam sighed inwardly. There was no use trying to lie about it. That was the demonic _modus operandi_ : deals. Dean wasn’t stupid.

“She wants my help killing this one demon. Lilith. Dean—” he interrupted when Dean took a breath to start asking questions. “I don’t know a lot about it right now.” A little lie. “We found you and I haven’t seen her since.” A bigger lie. “I told her I’d talk to her later about it, after I got you…better. Okay?”

“It’s not okay, Sam. We don’t make deals with demons or any other fucking monster. Don’t you _know_ that? Isn’t that pretty fucking obvious after what’s already happened to our family?”

“Yeah. Okay, Dean. But, anyway… Still, if this Lilith is around, she’s dangerous—”

“ _All_ demons are dangerous. And we’ll deal with it without help from your new little friend.”

And that was that. Dean pulled his hood up and slouched down and went to sleep, leaving just a sliver of his face for Sam to snatch glimpses of as the seamless desert whipped by. He put his foot down. He needed to talk to Ruby.

Dean traded anger for nervousness the closer they got to Sioux Falls. By the time Sam steered the dusty Impala into the junkyard at Singer Salvage, Dean was an uncommunicative ball of stress, irritable and pale.

“Hey, Dean,” Sam almost-whispered as they sat in the cooling car, Dean squinting up at the house, his hand nowhere near the door handle. “It’s just Bobby, man. He loves you, okay? He’s gonna be really happy to see you.”

“I know,” came words through a clenched jaw.

“He’ll have beer.”

Dean blinked a few times and then nodded, but Sam still had to go around and open the door for him.

Sam shook his head at Bobby over Dean’s shoulder when he went to hug Dean. A hand out instead, and even then it took Dean a few long seconds to respond, but he moved forward into the house. Into Bobby’s space, put an arm around his shoulders. Eyebrows up, Bobby cautiously hugged Dean back, one-armed, and then he and Sam watched as Dean broke free and backed away, bounced off Sam and fled down the hallway and into the bathroom, where he stayed for half an hour.

“Do I smell bad?” Bobby asked humourlessly.

“Everything’s bad to him right now.”

Bobby clapped him on the back and scratched his own beard. Then, “Well, anyways. I got something on the radar I wanna talk to you about. We’ll play it by ear, okay?” he said when Sam cast a worried glance towards where Dean was hiding. “I’ll stop if he gets spooked. But he ain’t here now, so what do you know about all this?”

‘All this’ were broken Seals. Ruby had relayed some of the weirder ones to Sam and he recognised them amongst the newspaper articles Bobby had piled on his kitchen table. He thought about feigning ignorance of the whole mess, but he knew that would backfire. Either because of Dean, or—and the potential here was very real and made him a bit sick with anxiety—Ruby was going to show up and spill the whole thing in front of Dean and Bobby just to try to shame Sam into helping her.

Sam had to believe that if Dean and Bobby knew the details of what was going on, they would agree with Ruby, would want him to help, despite the way Dean had acted in the car. Sam knew the world was more important than his own pitiful life, and they would see the same when it came down to it.

“Yeah,” he started, organising the clippings for no reason other than to keep from having to look at Bobby. “Yeah, I know what’s going on. I mean, somewhat—” Sam corrected when Bobby shot him a what-the-fuck-have-you-done-now-kid look. “W-when I was looking for Dean. This, uh, this demon. She, she showed up and helped me a few times. Kept telling me about all this.” He gestured with an article about three hundred Norwegians killed by a lightning strike.

Bobby was two beers in and Sam was nervously tapping at the condensation on the bottle of his almost-full one and trying not to squirm at the perturbed glances Bobby kept throwing him when Dean finally re-emerged.

With one last sidelong at Sam, Bobby nodded Dean to the fridge for his own beer. “Good to see you, kiddo,” he said as Dean sat down. Closest chair to Sam, across the table from Bobby. Bobby leaned even farther away, nudged his hat up a bit so Dean could see his face clearly. “Dunno about that new door knocker in your face, though. A plug might suit you better. Sam’s the one that would look good with the ring.”

He shrugged at their incredulous expressions. “What? Have you _seen_ the broads in some of those tattoo magazines? Subscription’s cheaper than Hustler, too.”

Between Bobby and Dean, Sam gathered enough concerned looks in the next three hours over what he knew about the Seals and Lilith to last him a lifetime. When Ruby was mentioned—which Sam tried for as little as possible—those looks turned to outright hostility from Dean and the concern from Bobby deepened. He didn’t get the encouragement he was hoping for, but he didn’t get Dean’s level of rage from Bobby over her, either. That was something. Bobby was practical, and any information was useful, despite the source. When Sam found himself assuring them that her information was solid, reliable, _trustworthy_ , though, Dean shifted like the wind bringing a storm.

“Fuck, Sam,” Dean yelled all at once and chucked his beer bottle at Sam. It bounced off his shoulder, splattering the backwash at the bottom across the articles and Sam’s throat. Bobby daintily lifted his hands out of the way of the spray and was watching Sam with a bemused expression after Dean stalked off.

“He’s got some trust issues, I imagine,” Bobby supplied when Sam turned to him, helpless.

The front door slammed and Sam jumped. He was guilty of something. A lot of things, okay, but he wasn’t sure what of right this second. “He can trust me!”

“Son, I trust you, but I don’t trust what you’re doing, or this Ruby. I’m not sure Dean can separate all that right now. You’re all he’s got and you’re fraternising with the enemy. Y’see how that might rub him wrong? How long’s this been going on?”

Sam concentrated on cleaning up the mess, saving the articles. “Um,” he mumbled, “she showed up right after Dean disappeared.”

“Ah hell, Sam. An’ y’didn’t even—what I meant was, how long’s Dean been throwing these tantrums?”

“Oh. Uh, pretty much as soon as he wasn’t drugged to the gills.”

“Gettin’ worse or better?”

“Better, I guess. I should go after him.”

“I’ll go. You leave this for now. Here, gimme that.”

Sam pushed his laptop over to Bobby and tried not to fidget as Bobby poked at it for several minutes. “Wrap your big brain around some of this,” he said, turning it back to Sam. There were six tabs open with titles like Counseling trauma victims, 25 techniques for treating PTSD, and New Methods on Coping.

“Bobby, you know he’s not gonna go see a counselor.”

“Well, duh. But he’ll listen to you. Sometimes. Maybe. And he might wanna talk about it eventually, and you gotta know what to do when he does.”

Sam scanned the first article while Bobby watched him and sipped the last of his beer.

“This…this kind of stuff works? Tapping? Rewind?”

Bobby shrugged. “Different things work for different people. I’m a fan of normalising superstimuli, myself.”

With that, Bobby gathered the empties on the table, dumped them in a cardboard box with an ear-shattering clang, retrieved two more cold ones from the fridge and stomped out after Dean. Making noise so Dean would know he was coming. Sam sighed and clicked the next tab.

Absorbed, an hour slunk by, then Bobby was standing next to him, knocking his shoulder with an unopened beer. He waved it off. “Where’s Dean?”

“In the car. I couldn’t talk him out of it, but he’s calmer now. Could be the talkin’ or could be the Valium he crushed up and snorted.”

“Seriously? Bobby—”

“Hey, I ain’t his sponsor.”

Sam huffed. He wanted to tell Bobby he was worried, tell him the state he’d found Dean in. How high, and at the mercy of who knows how many sadistic weirdos.

Sam had told him a few things when he’d called to say they were coming. That he’d found Dean at last. _Human trafficking, Bobby. Dean was drugged. Held captive._ Bobby cut him off, patented _Alright, son. That’s all right. You got him, that’s all that matters_ , somehow extremely soothing to Sam, and he knew Bobby was saying _Don’t tell me anything Dean wouldn’t offer up himself._ Which was most of it. And Sam would keep Dean’s secrets, always. He’d never ratted out his brother and wasn’t going to start now.

Bobby was watching him. Sam ducked his head, let his hair cover his fears. “Is he coming in, or…”

“Not likely.”

Sam looked back at Bobby looking at him for about ten seconds before he stood up and left the house. He almost expected Bobby to call after him, tell him to wait, let Dean be. He might have listened. But maybe Bobby knew something Sam didn’t. He knew a lot of things Sam didn’t, actually, so Sam took silence as encouragement and stalked out to the Impala.

Dean was stretched across the front seat, back to the driver’s side door, the window cracked a few inches behind his head. Sam could hear the Stones playing. Dean watched him walk up to the car, but Sam rapped his knuckles against the window anyway. A flash of white as Dean rolled his eyes, but he didn’t tell Sam to fuck off. Once again, Sam took silence for the go-ahead. He opened the back door and got in.

“Hey.”

“Are you fuckin’ this demon bitch?” Dean asked, his voice pitched a little funny from the pills. As if he were breathless from running, nervous like he was being chased.

Sam answered too slowly. He knew it. Should have just let Dean rile himself up and have a one-sided argument. He used to be good at those. Instead, Sam thought about it like he’d been thinking about everything for months and months without Dean around, rationalising and defending and, Dean would say, making excuses.

After a few seconds (way too long), “Dean, I didn’t mean—”

“Oh, what the _fuck_ , Sam?”

Sam tried to backtrack. “I didn’t—I’m not—”

“You’re such a fucking child. Always running away, always lying about shit.”

“You lie—”

“So you should fucking know better, then, huh? ’Cause fucking look what happened to me.”

Sam blinked. “Wait. Dean, if you mean… This wasn’t your fault. You didn’t do anything to have this happen to you.”

“Fuckin’ whatever,” Dean grumbled under his breath. When Sam just stared at him, he snapped, “ _Actually_ , if you fucking _think_ about it, everything I’ve ever done led me right there. Put me right in the path of this shit, which includes lying. Cheating, stealing. And all the good shit I ever done, too. So fuck it. Fucking fine, whatever, man. Do whatever the fuck you want. See if I care.”

“Do… Do you care? I mean… I won’t.” The lie slammed his throat shut, made his hands tremble for want of a drink. He cleared his throat, spoke softly. “I won’t see her anymore if. If you do. Care. Or, or don’t want me to. I mean.”

“Do whatever y’want,” Dean said, slurring his words. He shifted angrily and then just slid down, disappeared. “You fuckin’ always do.”

Sam sat up and leaned over the seat. Dean was flat on his back, one knee up, the other leg stretched out in the passenger side footwell. His eyes were open, lime green and shot through with huge black holes, and he glared up at Sam.

“Dean… No, listen. I-I…I want you to trust me. I know it’s not…optimal…that I’ve been with Ruby. Working with her,” he tried to cover up, but Dean just shook his head. “I couldn’t have found you without her!”

“Maybe you shouldn’t’ve, then.”

“What? Fuck you. I would have done _anything_ to find you. I would do anything for you.”

Dean coughed. Or laughed. Cleared his sinuses and swallowed hard, tipped his head away. The dark night and flickering fluorescent streetlight across the lane shone in a pale strobe on Dean’s face. Made razors of his cheekbone and witch’s brew of his eye as he slanted a look at Sam, then away. Clicked the keys in the ignition, shutting down the radio. Long-nailed fingers clawed their way around the steering wheel. The first time he’d touched it, Sam realised, watching Dean’s hand stroke along the black ridges. One lover touching another.

“Wanna hang out while I jerk off?”

“W-what?” Sam stuttered.

“Y’did it before.”

“I did not!”

“Fuckin’ can’t not lie, huh, Sammy?”

“Well! I didn’t _mean_ to. Jesus.”

Dean said nothing. His mouth opened like he was going to, and Sam held his breath, but Dean only stared up at him. A second. Five. Then his hand moved, left the steering wheel and landed on his thigh. Splayed fingers drew Sam’s attention and when Dean had it, he framed the bulge in his jeans with his forefinger and thumb.

“Dean?”

“Takin’ you up on y’offer.”

“Wha—oh.”

Anything.

All of Bobby’s PTSD recommendations flew right out of his head as Dean twisted his fingers over his button-fly. The voice that had been telling him _no_ , _shouldn’t_ , _don’t_ , since he’d gotten Dean back was getting smaller, quieter, weaker each time this happened. _Why_ was it happening? And what did Dean want from him?

“Sammy.”

Jeans open now, no underwear. Dean wriggled a few inches out of his pants, just enough to get his dick free. The smell of him made Sam’s mouth water. Chlorine and stress-sweat and, somehow, the scent of summer. He couldn’t place it, but he _felt_ it. Hot sun and teenage hormones and Dean grinning over at him from the driver’s seat as crisped farmlands blew past them, a little too drunk to be driving, the loud music whipping through the car the only thing keeping him awake. Reckless and restless and Sam hated and loved everything about it and somehow he was there and here at the same time.

Sam swallowed, had to wipe a thumb at the corner of his mouth, and Dean flirted with a smile when he saw. Then his eyes closed as he touched his cock. Both hands: one under his balls, gripping the base tight. _So_ tight. His dick got red, veiny and solid as Dean trapped the blood in it with the pressure. His balls spilled heavy and soft across the back of his hand.

Dean stroked himself gently. Root to tip, starting over with a loose downward stroke, coaxing more blood to the head until it was flared huge and sensitive. Sam knew it would be. Wanted to touch it. Fingertips. Tongue. Sam spread his knees wide against the back of the seat, his own jeans cutting painfully into his erection. Dean was moving quick now, holding himself tighter. Banging his left hand against his right; harder, faster, and it took a second for Sam to realise it probably hurt, what he was doing.

As if on cue, proof, Dean sort of _squeaked_ as he slammed his fist down against his balls. He didn’t stop doing it, though, didn’t adjust his grip. Another noise, a hiss that was just-about Sam’s name, and he had to glance at Dean. Glassy-eyed and flushed like he’d been slapped on both cheeks, he was high as fuck and what the fuck were they doing?

Dean’s palm was suddenly right in front of him and the scent was so strong. So good.

“Spit in my hand.”

It was that or choke on the wet mouthful he had. Practically drooling from watching Dean jerk off. Somehow he knew Dean would think of it as another lie if he didn’t do it. Sam pushed a deep puddle of saliva from his tongue into Dean’s cupped hand, watched, utterly stunned and only a little embarrassed, as Dean carefully brought it to his cock. Poured it over the head and smoothed it down the shaft. Started up the brutal rhythm again.

“Oh fuck. Feels good.”

He was hurting himself, and Sam had just made it easier to do.

For another minute (or more—Sam was outside of space and time, had no real idea) Dean worked himself hard and fast, knocking his fists together, banging against his balls until Sam would have winced in sympathy if he’d been able to move at all. He fucking _ached_. From the position he was in, at the way his own dick was bent and straining in his jeans. His heart and head, wondering _why_. Worrying. Fighting against crawling over the seat and covering his brother’s body with his own just so he could feel Dean come under him. Crush them together if Dean needed to feel something so badly he was abusing himself.

Dean’s hand slowed, sticky, and he whined, frustrated. Stared up at Sam until Sam had no choice but to look at his face again.

“Spit,” Dean said. “On me.”

It was half of what he wanted to do. Move closer, lean over the seat. Get his mouth over Dean.

Dean made an excited, pleased little half-laugh as Sam drooled down on him, and the way he moved now Sam knew he was almost there. Dean’s nuts tightened, pulled up so that there was no way he could avoid smashing them with his other hand, but he didn’t stop, didn’t adjust his grip at all.

Without thinking about it, Sam reached down and pulled Dean’s t-shirt up to his chest. Left his fingertips on Dean’s skin under the guise of holding the shirt out of the way, and he wanted to think that’s what did it, that touching Dean made him come.

His cock jerked. Swelled and pulsed, but nothing happened until Dean let go of the base, then come jetted from him, hit high up on his belly in one, two, three thick white streaks. Hit Sam’s fingers, hot then too-cold, a familiar sensation. Much less familiar was the wet-warm suck of Dean’s lips on his fingers a moment later. Swirled tongue, learning the curve of his nails as Dean cleaned himself off Sam.

Shock-numb, Sam didn’t resist when Dean pulled his fingers from his mouth with a reluctant pop just to smear them through the pooling mess on his belly. Could only watch, had to suck his bottom lip far back into his mouth as Dean made more of a mess than anything trying to use Sam’s hand to clean himself. Brought the gooey smear to his mouth again and lapped it up. The third pass and, his fingers wrapped tight in the soft-sharp confines of Dean’s mouth, Sam clapped his free hand over his own mouth as he came in his jeans.

Dean knew it was happening. Eyes closed like he was dropping off to sleep in the middle of swallowing his come and Sam’s finger, but that tongue was still working. Sam could pretend for a second, though. Caressed Dean’s cheek with his tacky thumb, traced the laugh line down the side of his mouth. Thought about what it would be like and how much he would deserve it if Dean suddenly bit him. Snapped his wedding ring finger right off at the base where Dean’s tongue was slipping around, circling it in some kind of wicked-sweet mockery of Sam’s thoughts.

Sam fell back against the seat, yanked his hand free from Dean, smearing spit and come across the backrest. They sighed at the same time, the first deep breath either had taken for a while now.

The Impala was stifling, but Sam still shivered. Knuckled his sucked-on hand against his jeans, ignoring the way his underwear was stuck to his junk and he was still so fucking hard somehow.

The world expanded around them, returned to some semblance of right-real-normal. But it would never be quite the same. The horizon was blurred, and Sam wondered if that’s where they were headed. If they’d pass through the smoke screen and come out the other side into a different reality, and who the fuck had taken drugs here, anyway?

This was no big deal, he decided. Dean was fucked up. Trauma and all that. He was starved of affection and confused about how to ask for it, how to get back into his role of big brother. Sam just needed to set better boundaries.

Sam tried twice before he managed, “Are we gonna talk about this?”

The vinyl popped as Dean adjusted himself. “Do you want to?” was the surprisingly reasonable answer.

Sam said nothing because honestly…he didn’t. Dean would eventually remember how to make fun of him for wanting to express feelings, and it was probably better, period, if they forgot this happened.

“Are you gonna go inside?” Sam asked instead.

“Nah.”

Silence.

Then: “Stay here?”

“Yeah, Dean. Okay.”


	10. Chapter 10

_He caught up to himself in a place of endless night, a battered and bruised moon hanging from an inverse Southern Cross, the ebony sky spangled with silver stars, scarlet streaked. Bells from a burning chapel jangled in the distance; a wild wind whipped fire through the city. He could hear the noise of it, and the begging and moaning of people even as they moved towards the heat, towards their end._

_He was cold, a blizzard inside him, and he felt so small, useless and obsolete, unable to help. And he didn’t want to. Wanted to run into the inferno to cast the cold out, burn himself down so there was nothing left to freeze. Wanted to run, but he fell, felt the dregs of humanity as a sludge between his fingers like holding hands, pulling him down and he screamed. Inside his head, out of his mouth, ripped his heart with it and ten thousand tears poured from his straining eyes._

_“Help me,” he cried. “Find me.”_

_She came, crowned in that fire, a mock sun, and all he’d done, all he wanted to do, all his accomplishments and hopes and dreams were so small, so insignificant compared to what he knew was inside her: God and all his devils shining out of her, and her shadow-self scampered madly along behind, fanged and sharp and jittery._

_Sam’s heart swelled. Boiled in his chest, burst with devotion. “Help me put things right,” he begged, her blood clotting on his tongue, between his teeth. “I try, I really try! Help me!”_

_Her shadow blocked the sun. “I’ll be good, I swear,” he promised, reaching, hands slipping in the blood running along the inside of her legs._

_Ruby drew him up, pulled him down to her. Her lips cast the frost out and she laughed, the sound full of tyranny, something terrifying. He tried to hold onto her but he knew he was going to lose her, that he only had until the day he died to love her._

_He grabbed her wrists, held her against him. Tangled his fingers in Dean’s bracelets, knotted where they’d been cut from him, and she stared up at him with sultry, wide eyes that flickered yellow-green-brown-green-white-red-red-red_

Sam frowned as he woke, flinching against the peeping of Bobby’s kettle. He was incredibly cold and his cheek and arm were stuck to the vinyl seat and _what the hell?_

Dean was muttering, squeaking, whining. Thrashing in the front seat, and Sam scrambled up, reached for his brother. “Dean? Dean, hey—”

He came to with a shout and the only thing that kept him from clocking Sam was the steering wheel checking his swing. “Ow! Fuck. _Fuck._ Sam.”

“Yeah. It’s morning. You were dreaming.” It wasn’t a question. Dean didn’t share shit like that. Sam long ago stopped asking him what they were because all he got were absurd stories about winning trophies or blonde sexpots.

“Fire,” Dean mumbled. Licked over his dry teeth and smeared both hands across his face. Arched his back and Sam saw how his belly hair was stuck down tight to his skin still from his come and Sam’s spit. “Some broad. I dunno.”

Sam fell back in his seat. “Really? Uh… Oh. Huh.”

Dean shot up and Sam flinched again, but Dean was grinning, the dream apparently forgotten. “Dude. It’s my fucking birthday, isn’t it?”

Sam couldn’t help but smile back. “Yeah.”

Dean knuckled his eyes and cracked his neck. “Saturday night in Sioux Falls, all right,” he mocked.

“What, like…you wanna go out?”

Dean shrugged. “Sure. Why not. Last hurrah of my twenties.” He made a face. “You might wanna get out now.”

“Wha—fuck.”

Sam tumbled out of the car, left Dean behind cackling to himself.

Bobby was up already; it was earlier than Sam had guessed, but the old man was a morning person and Sam was thankful for the coffee and frozen toaster waffles Bobby pointed him towards. Dean ambled in a few minutes after, stole Sam’s coffee, wrinkled his nose at the waffles and seemed content to bother Bobby the rest of the morning about hunts during his absence and how the junker business was going. They disappeared outside a couple hours later when the mid-morning sun had taken the frost off the rust; Dean wanted to see how neglected the Impala had become with no one but Sam to take care of her. Sam flipped Dean off but didn’t contradict him. He was pleased when Dean even bumped shoulders with Bobby and didn’t jump back at the contact.

He seemed more cheerful than he had in a long time.

Sam refused to think about it having anything to do with last night.

Shit, shower, shave: Dad’s morning routine was comforting, though Sam tried to be nonchalant about rushing through the second and third steps so he could get to a window and peer out. Check on Dean.

He and Bobby were bent in half under Baby’s hood.

Dean was okay. Still here.

Angled where he could see his brother through the window, Sam spent the afternoon sprawled amidst Bobby’s notes and clippings on the broken Seals.

No matter how he tried to sort them, there was no discernible pattern to where or when or why. No way to track down what the next one would be. No way to stop them from being broken. Zero chance of Sam getting out of his deal with Ruby to stop Lilith before she released Lucifer.

Maybe Ruby knew something by now. The hairs on his neck prickled at the thought of her, as if she were right behind him. He resisted the urge to turn. She wouldn’t be so stupid as to come here; he’d warned her against it, pointedly. Bobby had Devil’s Traps everywhere. Sam thought about calling her. Tomorrow. He would keep his promise and help her. But not today. It was Dean’s birthday.

Dean’s good mood lingered throughout the day, but because Sam was looking, he could see how Dean was struggling to maintain it. Sam gave up on the Seals after a while (about the time Bobby wandered off and left Dean alone), and went outside to find Dean staring up into the pale blue sky, his cheeks the same greyish colour as the clouds on the horizon. Snow clouds, Bobby had informed Sam once, a little kid staring in the direction Dad and Dean had gone the week before. Blowing in from the northeast, now the same as then, and Dean didn’t seem to recognise Sam. Turned his head slowly at the sound of Sam’s approach, eyes glazed, lips slightly parted like he was expecting a kiss and Sam gripped the neck of the beer he was holding tight as he held it out to Dean, hoping the trembling of his fingers wouldn’t be obvious.

“Hey,” he said, offering in hand. Dean just stared at him. “Um, so, I didn’t fuck anything up with the car, did I? Dean?”

A blink, a slow, loud inhale, and Dean came back to life. Looked around furtively and rubbed his forehead, left smudges of road grime and oil above his left eye. “Nah,” he said, voice rough. He took the bottle Sam was still holding out. Ringed his fingers around the neck right up under Sam’s and he was so cold. Or Sam was too hot, but the touch sent a little shock zipping along Sam’s skin.

“She’s fine,” Dean went on. “Oil change and some clean plugs and she’ll be ship-shape. What the fuck is that garbage on the dash, though?”

“That’s my iPod, dickhead. I’m sick of listening to tapes and shitty small town radio stations.”

Dean smirked and rubbed the opening of the bottle against his bottom lip. “Yeah, well, it’s under the front seat now.”

“I’m putting it back.”

“No, you’re not.”

They argued good-naturedly and touched up the Impala. Dean showed him how to check the tires for bad bearings and wire brush the spark plugs, and Sam bloodied a finger scraping at build-up watching Dean space out again. As if he was dreaming on his feet, his whole body was soft, limp, his face tilted up to the sky, just staring, vacant and calm. Or, at least, calm was what Sam hoped.

He found out he was wrong when he turned from shaking the tire like he’d been instructed and reached out, nudged Dean’s chest with a knuckle to get his attention. That loud breath again, rattling through Dean’s throat, into his body until he was trembling from head to toe.

Like the air was something thick and resistant, Dean slowly turned his face to Sam’s and he looked fucking _terrified._ Eyes wide, mouth gaping like a scream was swelling there, and Sam started as the empty bottle clattered down on the gravel when Dean dropped it, his hands at his sides, fingers splayed out. Glancing down automatically to see if the bottle had broken, he saw Dean’s hands like that, and something else. Dark, maybe a shadow, maybe grease, but almost definitely piss staining Dean’s pants.

“Dude.” Sam looked around, heard Bobby in his garage. Eyes back on Dean, on the skeletal remains of his once fearless, proud brother, Sam took a cautious step into Dean’s space. So close, he could _hear_ Dean shivering, and the tiny whimper that twisted its way free from his chest. “Hey,” Sam whispered, ducked in closer until he could taste the beer and panic on Dean’s breath. “Hey, Dean. I’m here. It’s okay. You’re okay, man. C’mon.”

He took Dean’s wrist carefully and pulled. Dean moved, trained to follow. He went without a struggle, trailed Sam with small, awkward steps as if his ankles were tethered together.

“You’re okay,” Sam repeated, made it a mantra as he stripped Dean. Tried not to focus on Dean crying. Just pouring tears and still shaking, quietly hyperventilating. Took Dean’s arm again as he got the shower going and waited for it to warm up. Too hot, probably, but Dean was freezing even through Sam’s layers when he finally just wrapped his arms around Dean, trying to hold him together.

Ten minutes later, Sam stepped out of the bathroom and closed the door behind him. Dean was clean and warm, had even mumbled a “Yeah, ’m good,” as he waved off Sam’s help and sat down in the tub. “Out in a minute,” he promised, monotone hum and Sam had to believe it or risk upsetting him again.

Sam left Dean’s bag inside the bathroom door and went down to make more coffee. Bobby was at his phone wall, the small black CDC cordless to his ear as he scratched down notes. He raised an eyebrow at Sam’s wet sleeves and steam curled hair and Sam shrugged. He knew Bobby wouldn’t ask, and he wasn’t going to tell.

“Well, there goes another Seal,” Bobby grumbled and banged the phone back onto the receiver. “So what do we got that can kill the Devil?”

Sam perched on the edge of a chair and scruffed fingers through the damp ends of his hair. “Well, hopefully…uh. I’ll—should I… I can _ask_ —” He felt his face heating up with every word, with the almost-reveal of Ruby’s ideas. Her plans for him.

Bobby surprised him. Validated him. He sighed. “Yeah, maybe you better ask. But Sam, you be _careful_ , ya hear me? You got a lot on your plate right now; don’t get distracted and let your guard down.”

“Yeah. Yeah, Bobby, I know. I won’t. I’m supposed to, um, contact…her…soon.”

“How soon’s soon?”

“Tomorrow.”

Not for the first time, Sam felt a little like a mouse with a hawk overhead, the way Bobby was looking at him. They’d long ago figured out that what felt like getting away with things around Bobby as children was nothing of the sort. He always seemed to know exactly what they were doing, thinking, thinking about doing, and when they succeeded it was only because Bobby knew how to pick his battles, not because he didn’t know there was activity on the front.

“Alright, son,” Bobby said and smiled the smile he used to give to Dean when word of their dad finally surfaced and Dean would get all excited, convinced John was coming to pick them up. The smile said Bobby knew better than to expect anything good was on its way.

There might have been more questions but they both heard Dean pound down the stairs and into the back of the house where the washer was. Bobby returned to his notes and Sam waited for Dean.

He seemed himself again: had opted for flannel after living in Sam’s hoodie (Sam hoped it was in the wash with the soiled jeans), though his clothes were caught on sharp bones and Sam’s hands moved, curling for something to brush over, remembering speed bump ribs and jutting hips. And Dean’d found his hair gel apparently. Slicked the length of it over from a side-part, bangs up and every which way and Sam completely nixed the idea of asking Dean if he wanted a haircut. He looked fucking _gorgeous_ , even if he was still pale, cheeks splotched like he’d been running. Sam was even getting used to the nose ring.

He was staring. Dean had come straight across the room and right to him.

“Where you takin’ me?”

“Huh?”

“Food, moron. Birthday dinner. Birthday _pie._ ”

They ended up at Biggerson’s. Dean even drove. Sam didn’t hook his iPod back up only because it was Dean’s birthday, but he rescued it from under the seat. Dean glared at him the entire process, then grinned like he knew just what Sam was planning, like it was a game he was looking forward to. Bobby sat bitch in the back and sided with Sam over the update to the Impala’s sound system and Dean told them they were both douchebags and fishtailed the car around a corner just to hear Bobby curse, and for one moment, Sam’s world was the way he wanted it.

“Here you are. I’ll be back with water and menus and your waitress’s name is Joan; she’ll be right with you!”

That Dean sat and scooted, pressed himself up against Sam’s arm, should have warned him. He should have asked for a different table, one not in the center of the restaurant which left Dean exposed on one side. Should have demanded a booth where Dean could fit himself into a corner and keep Sam and Bobby between him and everything else, but just like Bobby had warned against, Sam got distracted. By Dean. He was watching Dean and nothing else, but was not really _seeing._ Just looking.

Like watching a caged bird take flight for the first time, it was beautiful simply having Dean in his natural habitat. He’d initiated coming here, taken the driver’s seat, had sauntered up to the restaurant like he knew exactly what he wanted already and some wormy, gross little part of Sam finally acknowledged that he’d been prepared never to see Dean again. At all. Sam wanted that thing to dry up and wither away and never remind him again how close he’d come to losing his brother.

Distracted, he didn’t see Dean pale once they were inside and the hum of voices enveloped him. He felt but didn’t _see_ Dean bow his head, shrivel in on himself the first time a family rustled past them to another table. And he didn’t see Joan come up on Dean’s right side.

“Howdy, boys! What can I—”

“ _Fuck_!”

Dean jolted into Sam, damn near knocked him over. The waitress, wide-eyed and faking a smile, her hand balled up and held close to her chest, had jerked her friendly touch off Dean’s shoulder when he’d shouted. He had his hand over his mouth now, eyes squeezed shut. Bobby tossed napkins on slopped out water as Sam righted himself. He heard a little squeak-pop and glanced down. Dean’s right hand was gripping into the soft vinyl of the seat hard enough his nails were ripping it.

“Bobby,” Sam hurried, nudging his foot under the table, “beers, right?”

“Yeah. Joan, beers, please,” Bobby said, took the cue easy. “And a couple of those fried onions to start.”

Her smile was tight-lipped now, one reserved for tweakers and ass-pinchers and she nodded curtly before twirling off towards the kitchen.

Dean’s eyes opened, but his hand didn’t come down from his face. He stared at nothing and ripped into the seat more. Hoping that it would work as it had earlier, Sam circled his fingers around Dean’s wrist. Tried to tug it from its death-grip, but Dean wouldn’t be budged. Sam squeezed, pulled harder. Dean grunted. Cleared his throat and slowly put his other hand down on the table. If Sam yanked, the seat would come apart in Dean’s grip, so he just held him there, wrist locked tight, and slowly, like ice water to a simmer, Dean relaxed. Loosened his muscles. Lifted his eyes first, peered sheepishly at Bobby who was squinting at his menu like a good friend should. Looked over at Sam. Unreadable, but Dean trembled, shuddered ‘no’ without speaking when Sam moved to take his hand from Dean’s arm.

Okay. It was okay, Sam could do this for him. Ground Dean, keep him focused, feeling protected if that’s what it was. And he liked it. Holding onto Dean. Feeling his bones shift slightly under his palm, tendons flex against his fingers. So thin; Sam could dig his fingertips into his own palm around Dean’s wrist. Thin for what it was, but not for his dick, slick and hard and pretty and to Sam’s memory, just the same size as what he was gripping now.

Dean sighed, picked at the edge of his menu, ducked his head down when Joan reappeared with beers and crunchy fried onion flowers. On Sam’s side of the table this time and Sam wanted her to look down, to see him holding Dean’s hand, for all she knew. Felt fierce and proud and protective all at once.

“Fellas ready or—?”

Bobby shot Sam a questioning look from under the bill of his tattered cap.

“Uh, yeah,” Sam said. “I’ll have number twelve, baked potato, everything on the side.” It seemed the obvious thing to do: “And he’ll have a number four, fries, extra pickles. And we’re gonna take a mixed berry pie home with us.” He smiled at her, but she ignored him, was already backing away when Bobby was done with his order, and Dean seemed to try to twist in Sam’s hand, stopped as soon as Sam clamped down harder.

It wasn’t easy navigating his dinner with one hand, but it was worth it not to let go of Dean. He had to once, to scoop the guts back into his portobello burger, and Dean used his release to drain his second beer without having to put his own charbroiled monster down, but then he thrust himself back into the safety of Sam’s hold. Bobby pretended not to notice whatever weird thing they were juggling across from him and just talked. Mostly about the new lady sheriff in town, then about the addition he’d made to his house.

Dean managed a few words around that. “Panic room? I’d pay to see you panic.” He tried for a sneer but it just came across pained, the tease dying long before mirth reached his eyes.

Bobby didn’t rise to the bait, or tease Dean back. It would have been too easy. Bobby had a small stockpile of pity that was reserved for only the Winchester boys, Sam was sure of it.

They waited to see if Dean was going to come even close to finishing his meal. He did not, but ate enough, and then a little more when Sam bore down on his wrist. Finished his fries, one at a time as Sam squeezed until his hand burned.

When he finally had to let go so Dean could get up and follow Bobby out of the diner, the pie and Dean’s leftovers in a bag Bobby took charge of, Sam did it slowly. Felt surreptitiously for Dean’s pulse (thready, too fast), trailed his fingers just an inch up Dean’s arm (his skin was cold, wet), pressed down on Dean’s knuckles (a wordless ‘I’m here, it’s okay’ he hoped Dean understood). He thought he felt Dean’s thumb brush his (was sure of it) and didn’t mind when Dean flung himself out of the seat and after Bobby all at once, like he’d been coiled, waiting to leave the moment he’d entered. Sam went ahead to pay, thought about a shiesty card but instead turned over three twenties to the cashier. Bobby might want to show his face here again.

Bobby was waiting by the Impala. Still locked out.

“Where’s Dean?”

“Dunno,” Bobby said, eyes scanning the parking lot.

Fear cut up Sam’s spine. “Did he come out?”

“I don’t know, Sam. I forgot to put the toddler leash on him. Maybe he’s in the bathroom.”

Sam was already five steps back towards Biggerson’s. He knew Dean wasn’t in there, but he fucking hoped he was. Banged past the hostess without a word, went the opposite way Dean had headed just to make sure. No Dean. Speed dial, but he only had Dean’s old number programmed, not the replacement. Sam trotted outside, threw his hands up at Bobby still waiting and watching by the car, and headed around the side of the building.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gratuitous use of [nick cave lyrics](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkumqinfXig) sorry/not sorry


	11. Chapter 11

Sam smelled garbage before he saw it; all the lights were at the front of the building. There was probably one employees turned on when they took the trash out at night, but for now, the small lot was almost pitch black to Sam’s unaccustomed eyes.

“ _Sam_!” A whisper-hiss. He’d walked right past Dean. Backpedaled, heel slipping in half-frozen goop. Dean caught his arm, jerked him into the shadow of an overhang and the scent of cigarette butts crushed underfoot and wet trash mixed with anxiety burning like a shot on an empty stomach made Sam want to retch.

“Dean, what the—”

“Shh! Look!”

Sam squinted, following Dean’s chin thrust. Across the road was a historical train station turned visitors information. Closed hours ago, the parking lot was still an access point to some trails along the river and people used them even in winter for dog walking, jogging, hanging out.

That’s what it looked like from here; a guy hanging out near a little bridge across a barely-there trickle. Maybe waiting for a friend. Or one of the hookers that strolled through on their way to and from downtown to the couple nearby truck-stops. The guy was all nonchalance and ego: shoulders back, hips out, showing off all that he had, which to Sam didn’t seem like a lot. Clothes that looked slept in, a black leather jacket that was too thin for the temperature.

Irritated, Sam snapped, “So—”

“ _Look_.”

Instincts, Sam hadn’t taken his eyes off of the guy even to scold Dean, and so he did indeed see the man glance up, seemingly right at their hiding place. More probably he was looking for anyone taking said trash out, but the important part was the silvery flare that lit the man’s eyes up when the glare from the streetlamp hit them.

“Vamp,” Dean mouthed, suddenly very close to Sam’s face, all warm salty-beer breath and slick tongue-over-lips sound.

Sam suppressed a shiver until it was just a weird-hot fizz low in his belly. “Go get Bobby,” he muttered, not daring to look at Dean, still so near and _why_?

Dean nodded and hummed—whined? But he turned and scuttled off around the building. The vampire started moving away, down the path to a bend and a little copse of juniper shrubs that would obscure him from sight. Sam let him take a half-dozen steps before slowly following.

He was across the road and at the edge of the park when he heard Bobby behind him. Eyes still on the guy now rounding the bend, he waited. Bobby shoved a short, sharp machete into his hand, his own blade tucked carefully under his vest. He was alone.

“Where’s Dean?” Sam whispered.

“Back at the car.” When Sam looked incredulous, Bobby shrugged and nodded them forward again. Sam balked. It was probably better Dean wasn’t here, but leaving him alone felt like a bad idea.

“We’re gonna lose it, Sam.”

He huffed, flipping the machete up under his own coat, and pointed Bobby the way. They rounded the corner. The vampire was about thirty yards away and jogging off across a field of crisp dead summer grass, towards some darkened buildings.

“Ain’t nothin’ back there but empty storefronts and some self-storage,” Bobby said. “I bet there’s a nest. Maybe we should wait, do some surveilling first. Might be we could get the whole lot of them instead of just one.”

Sam nodded, breath an opaque mist. The temperature was dropping rapidly and the sky was reflecting yellow-grey city lights off the low clouds. He was sweating already, nerves and adrenaline battling the relief he felt at finding Dean so quickly. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s a good idea. We’ll go in the afternoon and look around.”

Bobby thumped his arm by way of agreement and they headed back up to Biggerson’s.

Sam’s relief was short-lived: Dean was nowhere to be seen _again._ The car was unlocked and Dean’s jacket was gone. He’d left it on the seat between them before going into the diner. The Glock in the glove compartment was gone, too.

“You don’t think he went after that vamp by _himself_ , do you?”

“I doubt it,” Bobby assured him. “Don’t flip out. He’s armed. He’s still a hunter, Sam. I think he just got nervous, but he can take care of himself.”

“No he can’t!”

Bobby sighed. “Alright, son. He couldn’t have gotten far. Let’s go for a spin and see if we can’t catch him.”

They didn’t get five blocks and Sam’s phone buzzed in his pocket.

_See u at Bobbys_

Sam wanted Dean to be there when they arrived, but of course he wasn’t. Didn’t show up in an hour, or even two hours later and by then Bobby had gone to bed. Patted Sam on the shoulder and told him for the seventh time not to worry, though they both knew he had been and would. Dean didn’t return any text messages, either, and Sam chewed his nails sore before he finally wandered into the junkyard and dialed a different number, one he knew by heart rather than had programmed into his phone.

“Ruby. Hey.”

“There you are,” came the purred reply. “Listen, I found this place that cooks their french fries in _duck fat_ —”

“What? Ruby, Dean’s gone!”

“—with scotch—for fucking fuck’s sake, Sam. Did he slip his leash?”

“Just—can you please help me find him? _Please_?”

“Oh, yeah, beg for it, big boy.”

“ _Ruby_ —”

“He’s _fine_ , Sammy.”

“What! He is? W-what—where? How— _where is he_?”

“Slow your roll, bro. He’s fine, I said. He’s out celebrating his birthday; I’m sure he’ll be back in the morning. Don’t worry about it.”

“Where did you see him? When?”

“I’m swell, thanks for asking!” she mock-sang.

Sam shut his eyes. Felt a tiny, icy snow-kiss on his lashes. “Ruby,” he said, carefully keeping his voice calm and pleasant, “hi. How are you? I was going to call you tomorrow, I really was.”

“I know. I’ve got a book for you. I would’ve gotten Dean one too but they were all out of Asian Anal Whores or whatever he’s into.”

He laughed despite himself. She always had some sarcastic quip, some off-colour joke. It was one of the things he—oh god. “A book?”

“Right up your alley, too. Huh. Is it snowing there? I don’t—”

“Dean—”

“Sam, he’s _fine._ Look, just get your sleep on, handsome. You sound exhausted.”

It actually seemed like she cared and Sam just stood there, bewildered and torn, snowflakes _pap-pap_ ing down around him. He _was_ tired. Hadn’t really gotten more than a few hours of sleep a night since he’d found Dean. Even less before then.

“I promise, Sam: Dean’s okay and I’ll even keep my eye on him, how ’bout that? Don’t worry. You rest. Need you in fighting form, champ.”

“Yeah,” he limped out the word. Not agreeing, just not knowing what else to say.

“You did _so good_ when you nabbed Dean outta that shithole. Did I say I was proud of you? ’Cause I am. You were Mr. Calm-and-Collected. There was footage, did you know that?”

“N-no. Oh. Really?”

“I took care of it for you, baby. I had a few connections…left over. If I’d known what a boss you were gonna be, I’d have left you a demon or two to tear down! I would have _loved_ to see that.”

He laughed awkwardly, her tone getting up under his skin. Like an infection. Irresistible, invasive.

“Stalking down that hallway, your big brother right there, your very own shadow. Your fucking expression didn’t even change when you popped those guards.”

 _Humans_ , his brain supplied. _You killed humans without hesitating._

“Fucking pimps and traffickers,” Ruby reminded him; seemed to moan, like she had one little hand down her pants. “You know, Sam, all I really had to do was name-drop you and the demons—and a few other boogities hanging out there— _ran away._ ”

“Wha—why?”

“’Cause they’re scared of you. ’Cause word’s out: Sam Winchester can send them packing without batting an eye. Well, that’s what they think anyway.” She giggled, lowered her voice. Sam could hear a dull thumping in the background. Train passing? Was she driving? Music? “We’re working on not breaking a sweat, though, huh? At least not with your clothes still on. I miss you, Sam.”

He swallowed hard, caught the phone between shoulder and ear so he could unzip his jacket.

“You _promise_ you’ll meet me tomorrow?”

Sam glanced up. The snow was falling heavier now, like stars shook loose. Meeting her would mean leaving Dean… “Yeah, Ruby, of course.”

“ _Awesome._ I’ve got an eye on your boy, Sammy, don’t worry. I won’t let nothin’ happen to him. Gotta go, baby. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She told him when and where and hung up.

Sam watched the world turn white-on-black until he could walk comfortably. He felt calmer. Trusting.

He decided if she was wrong, if Dean didn’t come back, he would kill her when he saw her again.

Three AM and Sam was almost dreaming, thinking-imagining-remembering and it was all gun smoke and loud music and too fast, slick shiny black tight not right so perfect and then Dean kicked him. Accidentally by the sound of the snort-giggle he heard, and thankfully Dean had taken off his boots before coming into the little room Bobby let Sam clear a space in, between books and blue boxes of car parts from NAPA. He’d stacked and shuffled until there was a king-sized area and two sleeping bags laid down over a foam pad. The side Sam was laying on had little pockmarks in it from when he’d nervously picked at it some fifteen years ago, sleeping in this same room when it still had some furniture in it, before Bobby had that ‘Heirloom Bonfire’ party that had been just John and him burning everything in Bobby’s house one spring evening, drinking, watching the flames in some kind of silent solidarity.

Hands pawed across the sleeping bag and almost smacked Sam in the nose. He jerked away and leaned up on his elbows. Dean closed the door behind him but the snow-glow through the small window to Sam’s left lit the room up.

Dean’s teeth flashed in a grin. “’Sup, little brother?”

“Dean! What the fuck! Where the fuck did you go?”

“Oh, y’know. Wherever the fuck I want ’cause I’m a goddamned _adult_ , ain’t I? Thanks for makin’ the bed. Ah fuck, wait, where—”

Dean’s silhouette patted at his own head, one side then the other. “Ha, didn’t lose it. Nice. Check it out.” Something was waved in front of Sam’s face, smelling like geraniums and Froot Loops.

“You’re stoned?” Sam grumbled. Hoping that’s all it was.

Carefully, Dean tucked the joint into the front pocket of his flannel (his jacket apparently already discarded wherever his boots were), and practice-perfect, stripped down to his boxers and a t-shirt. Scrabbled around nearby but then thumped down hard. Very close to Sam.

“Blazed to the face.” His voice was as smoky as his breath, as slow and curling in Sam’s ears as the scent lingering around Dean’s mouth. He scooted closer for some reason, elbowing Sam in the ribs.

“Get off,” Sam said, shoving. He didn’t really mean it. Dean somehow knew that.

“’S cold, Sammy. Fucking freezing. See?” Icicle fingers pressed against Sam’s throat and Dean chuckled at Sam’s gasp. “You’ve got the warmer sleeping bag. Gotta share.”

He didn’t, actually. “Okay.”

A venting of heat as Sam lifted the cover and Dean brought all of winter in South Dakota with him under it. They both shivered and Dean giggled again, and then Sam yelped when those January fingers traced the edge of his underwear, along his hip and down the crease of his thigh.

“What the hell!” he hissed.

“Fastest way to warm your hands up,” was the well-duh answer, and fingers wriggled deeper between his legs.

“Dean! That’s—that—” was making him hard, _fast_.

“You’re bigger.” Yeah, he was. Had inches all around on Dean. “Figure, more blood, more heat.”

“Stoner logic,” Sam tried to tease, tried to keep from thrusting, from telling Dean to just wrap his chill grip around his cock and warm them both up. “Where’d you go?” he asked instead.

“Dunno. Bar. By the mail-thing.”

“The post office?”

“Mm.”

That was more of a club than a bar, Sam thought, having gone on midnight runs to the convenience store down past it, his way impeded by swarms of girls arm in arm, pink-cheeked and drunk and being trailed by or chasing dudes across the street, every opening of the establishment’s door letting loose terrible over-synthesized country and cutesy pop music. Not Dean’s usual haunt. But then, Dean wasn’t his usual self.

Those fingers ceased digging, settled in. Then a little bit of pressure. Dean slipped his other hand next the first, prayer-palms between Sam’s legs.

“Jesus christ.”

“Huh-uh,” Sam heard, and he let it work, let his older brother quiet him. He closed his eyes. Dean wriggled closer and Sam let that happen, too, let Dean’s forehead rest against his collarbone, his own chin just touching the crown of Dean’s head. Let Dean’s hands nestle just under his shameless, mindless cock.

“Dean?”

The heat of Dean’s sigh made sweat trickle across Sam’s chest. Sam couldn’t really feel those frozen fingers anymore, but Dean shivered again.

“It’s just me and you, Sammy.”

“W-what? Dean?”

“’M safe here.”

“Yeah,” Sam confirmed automatically. “Yeah, of course. No one here but me.”

Another shiver. No, a nod. And then lips. Against Sam’s skin. “Just us. Nobody else, Sammy.”

“I-I—Dean—”

“’M only alone when I’m here. With you.”

“Alone?”

“Nobody else,” Dean repeated, and then his hands moved, opened, pushed at Sam’s thighs. Cupped his balls through his shorts.

“Oh—w-wait—De—”

“Jus’ me ’n’ you, Sammy. Tell me I’m safe.”

“You’re safe, Dean,” Sam told him. No sound to it but they were so close Dean could hear every whispered syllable. And Sam’s arms told him, reached around and under Dean, pulled his head in, his hips. “I’m right here. I’ve got you. You’re safe. You’re safe.”

Dean nodded again. Hooked his fingers into Sam’s underwear and hauled them down. Sam had to help him or they’d be ripped and then Dean wasn’t jerking him off so much as playing with him; hands roaming his length, palming the head, thumbs feeling out the shape. Sam should have stopped him. Stopped _this_. But…what if Dean _left_? He’d come back to Sam tonight. Could have gone anywhere, with anyone. Anything could have happened, but he was right here, and Sam squeezed him to make it more real. Dean made a soft, sweet, contented sound, a little ‘oh’ that Sam had never heard before. He wanted another one.

He squeezed again and Dean hummed, but when he took his hand away from Dean’s neck and stroked down Dean’s arm, his brother shuddered, twisted his shoulders under Sam’s grasp.

“Harder,” Sam heard.

“W-what?” He did just the opposite, lifted his palm so only his fingertips trembled on Dean’s skin.

Another twist, as if Dean were trying to shrug him off completely.

“Just—jus’ fucking touch me—I dunno, _harder_.” Dean shoved at him, one hand against Sam’s sternum while his other yanked on Sam’s cock. The push-pull made Sam grunt uncomfortably, made him take his hands away completely, feeling like he’d done something wrong. He tried to find Dean’s eyes in the darkness, but his forehead was down, grinding against Sam’s shoulder, and the palm against Sam’s chest was clawing. “ _Sam_.”

He caught that hand and crushed the bones together. Dean gasped and his other hand loosened on Sam’s cock. Glided up its length and back down. He was still pushing with his forehead and that was starting to hurt, too. Sam didn’t want to hurt. He wanted Dean to make him come (his now-warm palm milking him, close to the base), he wanted to tell Dean he was safe, make him _feel_ safe, and Dean—

Teeth. Dean was fucking biting him. Running his front teeth over the perilously thin skin of Sam’s collarbone.

“Don’t!” A surprised half-snarl and he had Dean’s neck in his hand. Around the back and pushing to break that sharp contact, but Dean’s tongue was just as shocking, licking the place he’d set his teeth to as Sam held him. His instinct was to slap but he shied from it, let his hand just drop. Metal. His thumbnail was tapped and it was a split second of annoyed curiosity that had him pinching Dean’s piercing. Twisted it just a little. Dean’s gasp was loud and he flung his head back, pulled willfully against Sam’s hold on him. Sam let go and Dean’s teeth snapped together very close to the tips of Sam’s fingers.

It was easy, felt right to curl his hand over Dean’s throat after that. Thumbed across his Adam’s apple and then up, pressing for the place behind his jaw; that soft, vulnerable pulse point. Sam put his weight into it, rolled Dean onto his back and he could see him now. Just a charcoal smudge in the shape of his brother, but wide eyes were obvious. So was the tip of Dean’s tongue where the pressure of Sam’s hand was forcing it between his teeth.

Dean’s hand was still in Sam’s, bones grinding between their bodies, but his other hand had not forgotten what it was about. An almost perfect rhythm.

Almost.

Sam shifted, kicked out of his shorts completely, lifted his right leg across Dean’s thighs, leaned down so he was almost eye to eye with him. Hand still pinned, his breath and blood impeded, Dean was rock hard and sweating now too; Sam could feel it as he trapped Dean beneath him completely and began to thrust. That tongue flicked between bared teeth. There was a flash of white as Dean’s eyes rolled and Sam leaned in closer, pressed harder, shoved against Dean and into the hand he was holding perfectly still and tight for Sam.

Sam couldn’t last. Dean couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. And he wouldn’t, Sam thought right before he came. He’d lie there and let Sam fuck him unconscious right now. Probably wanted him to. Trusted Sam enough to have him like that.

“Fuck, Dean. Fuck. You’re safe. I got you.”

He had nothing. No control, and Dean could have slipped away unnoticed as Sam’s orgasm blindsided him, left him shocked and overheated. He wanted to comfort Dean, but when he could orient himself inside his body once more, Dean was taking care of him. Wiping carefully at the mess he’d made, dragging the side of his palm along Sam’s skin, his own, and when he had it all, he cleaned his come-covered hand with his tongue. Sam could barely see, his vision streaked by sparks born of breathlessness and shadowed by night and nearness, but he recognised the ritual.

He waited until Dean was done, fascinated, and then he moved his arm away from Dean’s neck and caressed his brother’s face. He didn’t understand the look Dean gave him, didn’t have time to, really. Dean pushed him. Not hard, and not far, but Sam went over onto his side, startled.

“I-I… Uh, Dean? W-what—I-I’m sorry?”

“It’s no big deal.”

“Don’t… Don’t you want to come?”

Dean shook his head. Proof, he rolled onto his stomach.

“Did I do something? I mean—I-I—this—”

Dean folded his arms under his head, ducked his face into the nest. “No, Sam, you didn’t do anything.”

But those words, the way they were said, the way whatever Dean was high on lent a looseness to his tone…

“I didn’t do…something. Touching you. You don’t like it. Except when I pinned you.”

“Shut up, Sammy.”

Sam closed his eyes and his mouth. Shut his brain off. Waited. When it came to him, he knew asking wasn’t going to get him the truth. He blinked, waited for his eyes to adjust, to find Dean and his position, and then he snatched Dean’s arm and yanked. Arms pretzeled, Dean made a noise when he was dragged onto his side again, and Sam was sure he knew what was going on now.

He gripped Dean’s wrist. Hard. Harder than he had in the diner. Another noise, annoyed…aroused. Sam let go.

“Dean,” he whispered, “why? You still… You want to be hurt? Seriously?”

“No,” Dean snapped. Left his arm stretched out, limp on Sam’s ribs. “Well. So what?”

“It doesn’t…”

“What? _Bother me_? The fuck it bother you for? You ain’t them. You’re just you and this is me and I can want what I want, can’t I?”

 _Them._ “Y-yeah. You, uh. Yeah, Dean. I just… I didn’t think—”

That arm thumped him hard, made him grunt. “Don’t think, then. Gets you in trouble.”

So he didn’t think. Dean was being a jerk and Sam retaliated. Bigger, just as fast—faster now that Dean was fucking stoned—Sam flipped, latched onto Dean’s throat and slammed him flat on his back.

“That’s why you’re high, too,” Sam growled. He curled the tips of his fingers, dug in behind tendons. “I don’t… Goddammit, don’t go away like that. Don’t leave me and then come back all fucked up! Might as well not even  _be_ here.” He was whining, and it pissed him off to hear it. Knew Dean would be disgusted by it, too.

Dean shook his head—tried to. Let out a frustrated, strangled breath. Sam gave him just enough space to speak in his grip. He expected a snarling answer— _get the fuck off me fuck you why do you care who are you to_ —but what he got was, “Ain’t nowhere else but here with you, Sammy. Do it. This. To me. I want it. Trust me, baby, I’m right here.”

Sam could see Dean’s eyes. If he’d had to guess, Dean’s eyes would have been closed. They weren’t, were looking right up into Sam’s. An innocent, careful blink told Sam it was on purpose, too. Dean wasn’t just gazing absently, somewhere else entirely in his head. He was here, focused on Sam above him, and Sam loved that.

“Jerk off,” Sam said, commanded, voice distant in his own head, unfamiliar. “Come before I choke your stupid ass out.”

Dean bucked up, a helpless motion. Writhed like a pinned snake. His hands clamped around Sam’s arms and Sam _might_ have let go if Dean had clawed at him. But he didn’t. He held onto Sam. His legs came open, bumped into Sam’s thighs.

“F- _uck_ —” The word was mostly just spit that hit Sam’s face and a click in Dean’s throat Sam felt under his palm. One of Dean’s hands dropped from Sam’s wrist, rustled under the blanket and Dean’s leg pressed harder into Sam, so he could feel it when Dean started up a hard, short-stroking rhythm, hand inside his boxers.

“Off,” Sam snarled, put his weight on Dean so he could shift, shove at the clothes. He wanted to _see_ , fuck, so bad, needed all of Dean exposed to him. Ripped the sleeping bag back and boxers off. Dean’s dick kissed across Sam’s stomach and then slapped down on his own as he rolled his hips to help Sam strip him. Caught it up again and kept going. Put his other hand back on Sam, his wrist, pushing harder against his throat, and Sam went with it. Choked until Dean’s rhythm faltered and his chest expanded, belly concave as he tried to breathe and was denied.

“Don’t stop.”

Shaking, god, Dean’s whole body was _shaking_. Quivering like nothing Sam had ever witnessed before but Dean did as he was told, making these soft little sucking sounds that Sam had to understand. Let go of Dean’s throat and jammed his fingers between his brother’s lips and it was like Dean was _dying_ and Sam was salvation when he came. A high-pitched gasp that Sam shaped into a hum with all four fingers stretching Dean’s mouth, and Dean arched up and rocked hard into Sam. Gagged on those fingers, bucked against Sam’s hips, smeared them both with his come and he was still shuddering from his toes to his tongue long after the orgasm should have subsided.

Sam took his wet fingers from Dean’s mouth just so he could hold onto him better. Rolled them both onto their sides and locked his arms around Dean’s ribs and held him as he trembled and panted.

A minute, maybe less, then Dean pushed back. Sam let him go because he thought he knew what Dean was going to do. He was right. Felt fingers and nails scraping lightly at his skin and saw them sucked on, and Dean did it to himself, too.

Sam had to ask. Whispered, “Why do you do that?”

Dean finished cat-cleaning his fingers before he answered, and there it was. Irritation, annoyance. “Don’t ask.”

“O-okay. _Sorry_.”

Dean grunted, nudged Sam onto his back, and then climbed on him. Wrapped his legs around Sam’s and grabbed his hips and then his tongue was on Sam’s skin. Lapped his own come off Sam’s belly, sucked it out of his pubic hair. Put teeth and suction on Sam’s hip until he palmed Dean’s face to get him away, but Dean resisted, leeched on hard and secure, sucking a bloody mark. A headlock was the only thing that got Dean off of him and they were both laughing and shoving at each other when Sam finally had Dean back on the pillow with him, face to face.

“Jerk. Jesus christ, Dean. That was not fucking fair!”

Dean said nothing but Sam felt him grin when he tucked his head down and against Sam’s chest. Sam fumbled for the sleeping bag and covered them both up again and then tried to concentrate, to know the moment Dean fell asleep. He guessed it was the moment right before he did too. Just after Dean finally stopped oh so slightly rocking himself.


	12. Chapter 12

The toast matched the coffee the next morning because Bobby was rushing around trying to find the keys to his tow truck. They’d planned to leave first thing for vamp-recon, but the dusting of snow and sleet had iced the roads and a couple of Bobby’s loyal customers (“He owes ’em favours,” Dean snickered) had called, needing a free pull out of a pasture and a ditch, respectively.

Dean turned his nose up at the charcoal-coloured breakfast until Sam leaned in close to him and whispered, “Eat,” right into his ear.

Dean turned his face to Sam’s at the command so fast half of the little word almost went into Dean’s mouth. Sam took a step back, clearing a path to the counter, his heart racing as Dean did as he was told. Dipped crisp, blackened toast into bitter coffee, and Sam had to pretend he’d been listening to the plan-of-attack instead of just watching his brother when Bobby asked him something.

“Uh. Yeah. I’ll find the, uh, city maps and, and sewer connection plans,” he sputtered. Dean was smiling, crumb-lipped and amused at Sam’s expense. He stuffed the rest of the toast in his mouth, slurped down the coffee and clapped his hands.

“Sweet! Vamps, man. I’m excited! …What?”

Bobby scratched under his ball cap. “Well, son… Are you sure? You kinda hightailed it last night, seemed like.” Bobby cast a look at Sam for support.

“Dean, you _don’t_ have to go with us. If you wanna just stay and rest—”

“What? No. Shut up the both of you. I’m _going._ Sorry ’bout last night.” And he actually _looked_ sorry—not just annoyed at having something to apologise for.

Bobby made a face, but when Sam just shrugged, he sighed. “Alright, then. I’ll be back in a few hours, boys, and we’ll get it done.”

Bobby was out the door minutes later, and it didn’t take long for Dean’s enthusiasm to wane. He started fidgeting. Messing with the papers and drumming his fingers, jumping at unexpected sounds. Sam tried to ignore it until he caught Dean running a knuckle over his piercing, pulling on it, making the end of his nose dip.

Sam let the map _fwip_ back into a tube shape and waited until Dean focused enough to notice Sam had stopped asking him about routes and weapons. It took several minutes.

“I don’t want you to come with us,” Sam said.

Dean glared at him. “Why not?”

“I just don’t think you’re strong enough, okay? I don’t think you have the stamina. And, to be honest, I’m afraid you’re gonna freak out and get killed if…if something corners you. Grabs you. You could get us _both_ killed,” he tried at last when Dean’s face remained stone.

“I won’t.” The quiver of his bottom lip was hardly convincing. “I need this.”

“Fine. Tell me why. I mean, if you’re worried about me, I can chill on it, okay? If that makes you feel bett—”

“That’s not it.”

Just like that, Sam knew what it was. Not pinpoint, sure, but he knew where this was going. He huffed but resisted the urge to cross his arms over his chest. To shut Dean out in any way. “Okay. Then. What is it? Talk to me, Dean.”

Dean hissed a weird laugh and jerked to his feet. Folded his arms around himself in a pitiful reflection of what Sam hadn’t done. “Uh. Goddammit, Sam.”

It hurt not to help him. “Is it like, you need to work it off or something?”

Dean shrugged. Then nodded. One bob of his head, and surprisingly he sat back down. Rested an ankle on his other knee. Picked at the frayed cuff of his jeans. “I gotta—there’s too much shit in my brain. I gotta, I dunno. Replace it. Fuckin’ out with the old, in with the new, you know what I mean?”

“D’you think it’ll work?”

The look Dean flicked at him made Sam laugh. A real one. “You’re so easy, Sam.”

“Dude, shut up. But seriously. I still say you’re not in any condition to fucking fight vamps. You know how sleazy they always are, man. Dean… You couldn’t even deal with the waitress!”

“Whatever. She smelled like menopause. Creeped me out.”

“Dean.”

“Okay! Fuck. Fine! So, what. What, then? I’ll start doing fucking push-ups again. I bet I can still outrun your giant ass any day.”

Sam didn’t rise to the bait. “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. Dad’s PT routine. But that’s not really what I’m worried about.”

Dean looked down at the fluff he’d collected from his jeans. Rolled it between callousless fingers. “You’ll be right there, Sam. I’ll be okay,” he said quietly.

“But, what if I’m not? What if we get separated? What if something grabs you, takes you somewhere? You’ll fucking flip out. These things, they see a weakness and you’re history, man.”

The words were barely out of his mouth when Dean lunged forward, roared through a tight jaw, the sound full of self-hatred and frustration. White-knuckled his fists, tensed, and he hadn’t lost all of his muscles. His forearms bulged as he clenched up so hard he shook. Sam heard his teeth grind. Then, like someone sticking a pin in a balloon, he went limp all at once.

The explosion surprised Sam. It really shouldn’t have, but he’d wanted this morning’s happy, confident Dean to stay so badly.

“ _Fine_ ,” Dean repeated. Blinked several times, his eyes glassy and red-rimmed. “I’ll just have to find another way to deal, won’t I?” He folded himself over, elbows on his knees as if the outburst had exhausted him.

It was partially a threat…and some kind of condemnation.

“Don’t be like that, man,” Sam implored, shaken and strangely warm. Flushed. “Look. Um. Okay. Come with us, okay? But you gotta stay back. Fucking promise me you will, or I’ll have to leave Bobby alone to get you out of there.”

Dean didn’t respond, stayed hunched, hands over his eyes. Sam couldn’t look at him long enough to figure out if he was rocking. Didn’t want to see. He got up. Carefully, slowly, making noise so Dean would know it was happening. Went to the half-rack and pulled a beer free.

“Here,” he said, holding it out. Tapped it lightly against Dean’s arm.

A choke-throated growl and Dean batted Sam’s arm away. Actually kicked out at him too when he didn’t retreat, and Sam was suddenly pissed. The anger from the night before flared up, always worse wrapped in worry. This game Dean was making up had rules Sam didn’t understand, positions he was supposed to play that he hadn’t practiced for, and it wasn’t fucking fair. He’d done so much for Dean in the last year. Fought so hard, pushed himself to breaking trying to find him, and here Dean was playing cat and mouse, lashing out at Sam every time he tried to be nice.

Fine.

If Dean didn’t want to be treated nice, Sam _could_ play at that. That was something he had _years_ of practice with. He could be the pissy little brother—only he was huge now, and they’d stopped their pranks years ago, so with no vent for his frustrations, Sam felt the weight of them on his shoulders, the itch under his skin to pay Dean back for his jokes, his rudeness, a lifetime of picking on Sam. Being mean, teasing, harassing, bossing, always thinking he was right.

He slapped Dean. Had to stop himself from making a fist. Checked the swing, but the chair squeaked on the floor as Sam moved it and Dean a few inches with the blow. Dean banged against the table, caught it, righted himself, and looked up at Sam incredulously.

That made Sam even more mad. Hadn’t Dean said last night this was what he _wanted_?

He snatched at Dean’s shirt, heard the collar rip as he yanked Dean to his feet, Shook him to keep him off balance as he spun them around and slammed him against the wall, knocking tools or whatever off the shelf with the force of it.

Dean sputtered, breath knocked out of him, and caught Sam’s wrists…but didn’t pull. Just like last night, he merely held on, watching Sam with wide eyes.

Sam jerked him forward and back against the wall. “Goddammit, Dean! Just fucking do what I tell you for once!”

Dean spread his legs incrementally, straddled Sam’s thigh, jeans tight and giving everything away. Soft there, and hot, the material stretched tight and Sam couldn’t help it. Had to _push_. Crushed his thigh against Dean’s groin. Another gasp and Sam shifted his grip on Dean’s shirt to the hem, gathered a fistful of material, hauled it up, exposed Dean’s belly and hook-scarred chest with one hand while pawing at the flannel over his shoulders with the other. Another jerk and shove and he had the outer shirt down around Dean’s arms, pinning them. Used the t-shirt to half-choke Dean, crammed his fist and the twisted-tight material up under Dean’s jaw, held it there until the blood began gathering in Dean’s cheeks.

“What the fuck is the matter with you, huh?” Sam growled. Fuck, he was hard already too. That just made him more furious. He _loved_ Dean. _Needed_ him. And now he fucking _wanted_ him, and Dean was being fucking rude and violent towards him and Sam still fucking loved him, and, and everything else.

“Dean, do you trust me?”

Dean blinked, narrowed his eyes. Sam could feel Dean’s fingers scrabbling to touch him, trying to catch the loops on Sam’s jeans.

“ _Tell me_. Do you?”

“Yeah, Sammy,” Dean rasped, Adam’s apple bobbing against the back of Sam’s fist.

“Good. Then fucking _do what I say._ Say it. Say you’ll stay safe. You’ll stay here if I need you to.”

“O _kay_. Yeah.”

Those fingers again, scratching desperately now. Dean was almost bouncing on Sam’s thigh and it had to hurt. A small grunt, shrugging, not trying to get Sam off, just…just wanting _closer. More._

Sam ripped the flannel off Dean’s arms and it was his turn to gasp when Dean immediately slapped his hands on Sam’s ribs. Down, up beneath his shirt. Diving then, under the tight belt and jeans. One hand stayed there, worming, the other went to the front. Attacked the buckle, the buttons, tore at his own and then something incredible. Sliding dry and easy against each other. Dean had both their cocks in his hand, was struggling to look down between them and Sam had to see too.

“God, lil’ brother, look how _big_ you are. Fuck.”

He was big. Heavy, thick and long. Short trimmed hair and tight balls always emphasised it, but he didn’t really need the help. Dean’s cock was nice too. Fucking perfect, really. Pornstar pretty, smooth and pink and silky. But it made Sam’s look all the more beastly with its downward curve and two-toned shaft; dark and ruddy below the circumcision scar, and pale above. Veiny, a big head; he’d never had a girl able to take him down her throat. Not that it couldn’t be done, he just didn’t pick up those kinds of girls.

Ruby could do it. But she didn’t count. She didn’t really need to breathe, didn’t need to worry about not being able to talk the next day.

Dean stroked both hands over them, squeezed them together. Bucked up into his fist, against Sam, riding his thigh. Puppy-whined when he wasn’t getting something he wanted. Sam shifted, got his legs spread around Dean’s and thrust forward, crushed their cocks together. Ground his hips until it hurt, and, yeah, he knew it—that’s what Dean was begging for.

Come coated the head of Sam’s cock and fuck it was weird feeling that wet-heat, smelling it, and not being the one coming. Dean shuddered, jerked them together faster. Let go of himself after a couple more strokes, let his drooling dick bump against Sam’s belly, concentrated on getting Sam off. Used his come to slick the way.

“Oh, _fuck_.” Sam was the one shaking now, Had to brace an arm against the wall to hold himself up. Caged Dean in completely, had him collared and controlled and darting his eyes between Sam’s face, kiss-close to his own, and what he was doing to him below. Heard Dean hum his name, his breathing giving it away. A reflex, he tightened his hold, felt Dean swallow hard, felt a pull like he wanted to go to his knees and he wouldn’t do _that_ , would he?

Just minutes ago, Sam didn’t think either of them would be doing _this_ , but here they were, covered in each other’s come, and anyway, Dean was leaning in closer, shaved-smooth cheek brushing his own, lips in his hair, whispering while Sam was still leaking.

“D-don’t be _pissed_ at me. I’m _sorry_. Just…do it ’cause you wanna. ’Cause you like it. Not ’cause you’re mad.”

Sam said nothing, blackout pleasure threatening his balance. Dean put his arms around him, apologised again, but the first time Sam took in a deep, regular breath, he let go, pressed himself against the wall in lieu of pushing Sam off. And he was doing that thing. Gathering come to lick clean, and Sam just leaned over him and let it happen.

Finally, Sam could say, “Okay.” Nodded, slid back a step. “Okay.” Lifted the remains of Dean’s shirt off his body and picked up the flannel, pulled it over Dean’s arms and then backed up further to let Dean get sorted out.

Sam tucked himself away, zipped up as much as he could. Went to the table, to the beer there that had started all this. Knocked the cap off and watched his brother. Dean wiped what he’d missed off his belly and hands, tossed the ruined shirt at the trash. Glanced over at Sam, the smallest smile curling the edges of his mouth. Fetched himself another beer and sat down, close enough to Sam he had to crane his head back some to look at him.

Sam looked back. Dean was still so skinny, but he looked _better_. Pale eyes and flushed cheeks from the orgasm helped, but there was something else. Like he finally had his _soul_ back. A tiny, flickering thing, but still… He sat down. “Dean, what are we doing?”

Dean sipped his beer before answering. “Whaddya mean?”

“I mean…fucking around, okay? It’s not. I. Is this really what you want?”

“Yeah. What, you don’t?” Dean shot a meaningful look down at Sam’s still unbuttoned fly.

“I…do. Yeah. I do. I just—”

“Look, Sam…” Dean sighed. Tipped his head back. Rolled his shoulders, and sighed again. “You want me to feel okay, and get over everything. That’s what I’m doing. This is what I want. You just said you want it, too. Right?” He didn’t wait for Sam’s answer. “Then great. So, let’s. What else is there?”

“Well… Nothing, I guess. I just wanted to…to know. If you really are okay. Not just with this…”

Dean smiled. “I’m not okay, but I’m at my best when I’m with you.”

Sam had the odd feeling that might have been the most heartfelt thing Dean had ever said. “Okay.”

“Good.”

“…But—”

“Ah, fuck.”

“No, listen. I just need to know what you want from me. Don’t look at me like that!”

Dean’s eyebrow popped up and he smirked. “Or what?”

“Is that it?” Sam knew it was. Wanted to stand up just to see Dean flinch. Loom over Dean and watch him bow his head. Slap that coy look of his face. “You want me to hurt you?” he asked anyway. “I mean…is that _it_? That’s what you want from this? You want this bondage stuff, want me to slap you… Punish you?”

“Do you think you could say it in a way that makes you sound any more disgusted with me?”

“Oh—no, no, Dean. I’m not. I _swear_. I just—I don’t know _how to_ say it, okay? This is—” He snapped his mouth closed around ‘kind of weird’. “I dunno, Dean. I gotta think about this.”

The way Dean was looking at him made Sam shift uncomfortably after a minute. Just when he was about to ask what the hell, Dean launched himself out of his chair and left the house.

He didn’t take the Impala.

Sam didn’t go after him only because he couldn’t get far. It was a long hike to anywhere interesting from Bobby’s, but there were acres of junked cars and a paint shop and an almost perfect garage right outside the door for Dean to distract himself with. But Sam stood by the window and watched the driveway for any signs of escape for awhile, just in case.

He’d left his vigil and was double checking the maps like he’d said he would when his phone buzzed in his pocket.

_IM GOING._

Then:

_ill be safe. ill do what u tell me_

_i need this_

Sam tapped back, _Okay. You promised. Come back in._

He did, shivering. Wouldn’t look directly at Sam, but didn’t tell him to fuck off when Sam trailed him to their bags and the extra clothes there. Sam lingered in the doorway and watched him reapply his layers of shirts. Spotted those thin, pink lines on his shoulders again.

“What are those scars from?” Sam asked without thinking.

Like he’d dumped water on that flame, Dean went ashen beneath his freckles. “Dogs,” he said, concentrating intently on his cold fingers working the buttons of his flannel.

“Dogs?” Sam echoed. “Wha—why—”

“I need a new watch,” Dean interrupted.

“Uh, yeah. Right. Okay—” _Dogs? What the—oh. Oh, no. No._

Sam moved aside automatically as Dean came towards him. Let him pass, and followed him back into the kitchen, to the maps and the job Bobby had left them with.

He knew better than to press Dean—shouldn’t have asked him in the first place, but Dean kept shaking him up. Confusing things. Rewriting the script he was used to. Made this new thing they were doing seem normal, comfortable, and that with messed Sam, made him careless of what Dean had gone through.

Sam’s phone went off again. Dean was right there, Bobby would call Dean now that they had his number, so that left only one other person who would try to get ahold of Sam. And he wanted to talk to her just as badly. But not now.

Bobby returned and they gathered weapons and gear. Dean insisted on driving and Sam thought maybe that was a good sign, but once they were back on the far side of town and had crossed the river, Dean started messing with the radio and missing turns. Bobby sat in the back and patiently repeated directions, but he raised an eyebrow at Sam when he turned to look down an alley.

Weeds were growing through sidewalk cracks in the area and all the buildings were dark and deserted, but they circled twice around one particular block when Sam noticed the windows had been spray-painted black from the inside.

“Home sweet nest,” Bobby muttered and handed out the machetes.

There were two doors into what the faded sign said used to be an antiques mall, and Bobby took the one in the back. Dean, true to his word, stayed behind Sam, but the precaution seemed unnecessary.

It had definitely been a vampire nest, and recently. Flaky brown bloodstains on the floor, mountains of cheap beer cans littering the corners, several ratty hammocks and mattresses left over. It smelled rank, like old vomit and fear, and most disturbingly, a little bit like sulphur.

It was Dean who found the severed head in a hallway, and Sam who brushed at the yellow, bitter dust nearby with his foot while Dean poked at the monster’s gums to make sure there were fangs.

“What, some other hunter beat us to the punch?” Dean asked Bobby when he found them after sweeping the back part of the building.

“Beats me. Nobody’s in town, far as I know. Let’s look around, make sure there aren’t any more body parts, burn what we find. There’s an old half a steel drum outside.”

Bobby took the head while the brothers followed the hallway to the other side of the store. Sam was checking the decrepit bathroom as Dean poked around behind a counter for a trapdoor when Dean got jumped.

Three vampires rushed out of the dark corner of a partitioned wall. Two headed for Sam, knowing he would see them coming, and the third sprang for Dean while his back was still turned. Sam saw it happening, didn’t get more than a startled shout out before he was hacking and backpedaling, trying to keep from being trapped in the bathroom. Dean looked up at the noise one full second before the other vampire slammed into his back and he went down face first, out of Sam’s sight.

Sam took an arm from one of the vampires, a pretty girl with rainbow dyed hair and lip rings, swinging through her bones and slicing across the belly of her companion, a boy just as pretty—maybe her brother, all long black hair and sharp cheekbones. There was a burst of gore and a sudden bulge under the boy’s shirt as his guts started to come out, and Sam spun away from the screeching things, lunging towards where Dean had disappeared behind the counter, but the girl threw herself at him, down to five claws but still full of fangs. Sam took most of her colourful head off in one awkward swipe and had to fight her enraged companion, his ropy guts swinging, until a lucky chop buried the machete in the thing’s forehead.

Sam tugged the machete free and lopped off the boy’s head, then bolted across the store to Dean.

The struggle was over. Dean had won, but he was covered in enough blood Sam skidded to his knees and grabbed him, twisting his face this way and that, checking for the source.

“Just banged my head, Sammy. Ow, man, stop! I’m _fine_ ,” Dean complained, but let Sam wipe and poke at him. “Help me up.” The vampire, the one from the path last night, was in two pieces lying across Dean’s legs. The removal of his head looked like it had taken Dean more than a couple tries.

On their feet, Dean’s belly bared again as he used the hem of his t-shirt to wipe blood out of his eyes, Sam suddenly felt like he couldn’t catch his breath. And he couldn’t stop touching Dean. His arms, looking for scratches, his face, brushing grime and blood from his cheeks. Dean dropped his shirt finally and just let Sam do what he wanted. He led Dean to the bathroom. Didn’t realise he had Dean’s hand in his until they were crammed together in the small space, letting the rusty water run clear, and he felt the pressure of Dean’s clutch around his fingers. Neither let go for a long moment.

“You were right,” Dean said while Sam used wet fingers, reluctantly reclaimed, to probe at Dean’s split scalp.

“Right? You need stitches.”

“I can’t believe this— _ow._ ”

Sam winced in sympathy. “It’s okay, Dean.”

“I froze.”

Dean stared at him, a peculiar tilt to his eyes, his lips moving like they were numb and Sam saw that he was very pale, grey again in the yellow light of the dusty bare bulb overhead.

“Oh. Uh. Dean…”

“I froze,” he repeated. “I couldn’t remember what to do. If…if I _could…_ If I should fight back. Y’know?”

Sam didn’t know, but he understood. He couldn’t imagine what it would take to kill that instinct inside him.

“C’mon. Let’s get Bobby and get out of here.”

“Yeah.”

Sam felt Dean’s arm bump his, backs of their hands brushing.

Bobby cussed at them and it made Dean smile, and Sam could have hugged them both. Instead, they all went together to get the bodies and parts. It took a while and a lot of gasoline to incinerate the leftovers, but there was a decent breeze to keep the smoke from giving them away, and Dean even suggested one more walk-through to make sure they didn’t miss anyone or anything. They found some personal belongings in a storage room and Bobby bagged up the jackets and wallets and broken cell phones to drop-and-run at the police station in case anyone was looking for the vampire’s victims.

The gouge on the side of Dean’s head wouldn’t quit bleeding, soaked his hair and neck and eventually his clothes down to his shoulder, but he didn’t seem woozy and sided with Bobby about staying until everything was burned and salted for good measure. They’d never heard of vampire ghosts, but you never know.

Sam drove them back to Bobby’s.

Dean wouldn’t let Sam shave a patch in his hair, but held the part while Sam superglued the gash together in Bobby’s bathroom. Leaned against the sink to steady himself while Sam carefully cleaned the blood from behind his ear, then the shell. He’d regained some of his colour, his heat, and he seemed intent on catching Sam’s eye. Hissed and bitched unnecessarily to make Sam stop…just to smile at him. Exaggerated winces until finally Sam grabbed his jaw, and then he could feel that smile in his hand.

“Hold still!” Sam snapped. “Where _doesn’t_ it hurt?”

When Dean put a finger to his bottom lip, Sam burst out laughing. “Did you just ‘Raiders’ me?”

Another grin. And then Dean pushed his face forwards, Sam still holding his jaw. Slowly at first, and Sam thought maybe Dean was just leaning away from the counter for some reason (he knew that wasn’t it, really). More forcefully when Sam neither let go nor backed away, then Dean’s heels left the ground and he kissed Sam’s mouth.

It was over in three seconds; that’s how long it took for Dean’s tongue to slip between Sam’s lips, touch his teeth, and then Sam jumped backwards, knocking into the door hard enough the handle would leave a bruise.

Dean was still smiling. Cocked his head like he didn’t quite get the joke. “You okay there?”

“What was _that_?”

“What?”

“You just tried to make out with me!”

“Uh, so?”

“I-I just—I didn’t think—”

“Rubbing our dicks together is okay, but no kissing?”

“ _Dude_. It’s just…”

“Movin’ too fast for you?” When Sam could only gape at him, Dean laughed quietly. “Do I need to take you out to dinner first? Bring you some flowers?”

“No!”

A louder laugh. “Okay, Sammy. Okay. I’m sorry?”

“Jesus, Dean, _shut up._ For just a second.”

Dean mimed zipping it and turned to look at his sealed cut in the mirror. Gave Sam a dorky thumbs up to make him roll his eyes. Then he just stood there, a reflection, and waited. Tiredly, Sam could tell. Shoulders slumped, blinking slowly. There was still some blood in his ear. His bottom lip was wet from where he’d run his tongue over it and into Sam’s mouth.

“Dean?”

A raised eyebrow, lips pressed tighter together. Another part of this game, then. He wasn’t going to speak until Sam told him he could.

That somehow made Sam feel better.

He closed the gap between them. Pressed himself up against Dean’s back, fit hips up against his ass. Reached around him to grab the counter. Felt Dean’s inhalation swell against his chest. He’d missed blood on Dean’s neck, and Sam put his kissed lips to it.

“Dean?”

“You were right, Sammy. I shouldn’t have gone. I wasn’t ready.”

“It’s _okay_. We’ll figure it out. I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

Dean rolled his hips, pressed back against Sam. “I always like you patchin’ me up, though. Could turn me into a pain-junkie. Jerk off while you’re stitching me up. Kind of wanted to just now. Got me hard again.”

He took Sam’s wrist and guided his hand down, over his crotch, and yeah, he was.

“Make me feel good, Sam.” It was more a question than anything. Of course it was. Suddenly Sam knew Dean wouldn’t demand anything from him ever again. Not about things like this, not something that Dean _really_ needed. And Sam remembered standing over Dean broken and high in a seedy motel bathroom, wanting to do exactly that. Make Dean feel good. A wish come true somehow.

So he did. Cupped Dean, squeezed him through his jeans. Made his breath stutter, then made him groan as he gripped tighter, harder. Harder still and Dean had to put both hands on the counter, shaking, brows drawn together in pain, but he didn’t stop Sam. This is what would make him feel good. Sam was getting it. It was weird, and they _shouldn’t_ , but…

Jeans opened easy. Shoved down (not too far; Dean’s naked ass was not something he wanted to deal with right now), bones of his hips exposed, cock bent down, trapped still. Sam splayed a hand there, veed his fingers over the thick base, made his brother moan softly. Both hands on those wide, sharp hips and he didn’t really mean to but he kind of did; wanted to know what holding Dean there felt like. _There_ , back against himself, Dean’s ass right up against his own hard dick.

“Get me out.” A suggestion, shaky, and Sam glanced at Dean’s face in the mirror, hearing _something_ … But Dean was looking down at Sam’s hands and Sam couldn’t quite see his face. Could tell that Dean closed his eyes when Sam did it, though.

He felt so good. Heavy, smooth, thick. Some light strokes, and Dean whined. Sam knew what he wanted but _he_ wanted just to touch. Feel him with palm and fingertips, let Dean’s heartbeat bounce his cock minutely in Sam’s loose fist. Dean tried to thrust, but Sam had him by the hip still. Had to brace himself when Dean shoved back instead. Ground against Sam’s cock, and then laughed breathlessly when that made Sam grip him tighter, pin him.

Dean was still looking down. He shifted like he wanted to spread his legs but he couldn’t. Made an irritated little growl, then settled. Submitted, and Sam _felt_ it happen. Unexplainable, really, but he knew he wasn’t wrong. Some kind of heat washed over them both, and Dean relaxed. Was going to let Sam do whatever he wanted to him, however he wanted. Something electric and sharp made Sam’s spine tingle. Images and ideas, half-formed and flickering like lightning, blinded his mind’s eye. Some of them felt like almost-remembered dreams; things unreal and impossible and dangerous.

He’d managed to ignore the scent of blood—Dean’s drenched flannel in a stiff wad on the floor, the blood-smeared t-shirt half-stuck to him still—but now it was overwhelming. Made his stomach twist and his balls tight. Confused the image of who he had in his arms when he closed his eyes.

He slurred, “Fuck.” Put his mouth to the dried blood on the back of Dean’s neck. Kissed again, licked. Scraped with his teeth to clean it off. Dean shuddered, thrust into Sam’s hand when he’d forgotten what he was doing, distracted by the tease of just enough blood to make his tongue sticky.

He released Dean’s hip and caught his throat. Straightened him up by it. Bent him back slightly so he could see his hand pumping Dean’s cock. Looked at Dean’s face, too, and that was even better. Wanted to be right here, with his brother. Wanted Dean to feel the same. To feel safe.

“Look.” He shook Dean’s jaw to make him raise his eyes. Flushed, excited, Dean watched his own face in the mirror for a few seconds. Closed his eyes. Opened them again, looked at Sam. Lifted his chin.

Sam squeezed, as hard as he had Dean’s dick now. Felt that inexplicable rush again when Dean collapsed against Sam’s chest, and he came seconds later, leaking watery and clear over the back of Sam’s fist. Didn’t gasp or moan. Couldn’t, Sam realised, and let go of his throat. There it was: full body shudder and a loud, babbling noise Sam shut up by shoving his wet hand against Dean’s mouth.

Licked clean between gasps, Sam caught Dean from going to his knees, presumably to look for any of his come that might have dripped to the floor.

“Don’t, Dean. I’ll take care of it,” Sam said and when Dean blinked up at him dubiously, Sam kissed him. Just a press of lips, a quick swipe of his tongue to taste himself there, like he needed proof of what had just happened.

Dean was smiling when it was done. Small, tired, but Sam was so fucking pleased to see that it was _real_. That Dean was _happy._ He jerked on Dean’s pants, buttoning him up like he remembered Dean doing for him when they were kids, and then his phone signaled silently in his pocket.


	13. Chapter 13

He got Dean out of the bathroom, reminded him of his joint from the night before and of birthday pie still waiting for him in the kitchen.

He had to grin at the way Dean’s face lit up. But then: “What are you gonna do?”

 _Lie._ “Take that stuff we found to the station. The library’s still open for a couple more hours, thought I’d check out—see what else has been happening. Y’know. With the Seals and, and all that.”

Dean smile disappeared. “Want me to go with you?”

“Nah. Just stay here, get some rest. I’ll only be gone a few hours.”

A long look from his brother, but no argument.

Avoiding his reflection in the mirror, Sam cleaned up, then sent a text to Ruby.

He tossed the bag of personal effects in a dumpster at a playground he passed and snagged a couple world newspapers at a Gas-N-Sip.

The restaurant Ruby picked was so fancy no one who might recognise Sam would be there. ‘Fancy’ still accepted a jeans-and-flannel outfit, and Ruby was waiting for him in a dark corner booth, picking at a basket of unsalted golden fries.

“Try these, they’re _amazing._ ”

He ignored her, tucked himself into the shadows. “Was that you? The vampire nest? I found sulphur.”

Ruby smiled at him, her lips shiny with duck fat and Sam had never really noticed their perfect pale-pink colour before. “It was. Boy, demons can be snarky but vampires are just downright confrontational. I think the cold weather around here makes everyone super bitchy. And you’re welcome. Couldn’t risk you getting hurt.”

“Yeah, well, you missed a few.”

Those pink lips pouted. “Did I? Huh. Sorry ’bout that. I _tried._ How’s your boy?”

“D-don’t call him that. Dean’s fine.”

“‘Fine’, huh?” Ruby’s eyebrow ticked but she waved at a waiter before Sam could ask her what her problem was.

“Lobster. Unsalted butter, please and thank you. More fries, and a couple Pilsners. And you’re gonna eat this with me, mister,” she bullied Sam. “You’ve probably had nothin’ but Biggerson’s and roadside tacos for days, let alone what that filthy old man feeds you.”

Sam chuckled. “You’re not wrong.”

“Never am.”

Silence. She was smiling at him, and he noticed another surprise. She had her hair pulled back from her face. A messy-on-purpose bun kept the heavy, silky mass off her neck and when she moved, small sparks of light shone from the pins holding it in place. She’d forgone the usual dark makeup; was wearing something silvery around her eyes and he couldn’t tell if the blush was natural or not, but she looked…sweet. Beautiful. She had on her usual leather jacket, but the tan top under it made her eyes a lighter brown than normal.

Ruby tapped mauve-painted nails on the tabletop for a few seconds, letting him look at her without ribbing him. Unusual, too.

“So. Um. Uh,” he finally stuttered, “you said s-something about a, a book?”

“Yessir. Here—” She fumbled with a bag next to her, then scooted out of her seat and darted around to Sam’s side, bumping hips with him until he gave her room to sit. He didn’t move far. Liked the heat of her next to him, and the perfume she was wearing.

She thumped a curiously bound tome on the table and waited for Sam to inspect it before doing anything else. He touched the dull, rusty-metallic coloured cover.

“Italian basilisk hide,” Ruby informed him. “Neat, huh?”

Sam opened the cover and carefully began turning pages. They felt…waxy. Sticky, sort of. He hoped Ruby didn’t tell him what they were made out of. “It’s, what, in Tyrrhenian?”

“Etruscan. Close enough.”

“What is it, though?”

“Directions. On how to kill Lilith.”

Sam watched as Ruby flipped through the book, its pages adorned with faceless goddesses and gilded snakes, lilies weeping carmine like menstruating vaginas, and fanged, wild-tressed monsters stuffing screaming babies into their maws. She pointed to stiff-limbed human shapes copulating next to a black river, speculating that somehow the act had something to do with Lilith getting free. Towards the back—and she shadowed the book with her hands when their beers and fresh fries were delivered—she pointed at a symbol, spiraled and spoked.

“That’s the killing blade, so to speak. Demonic guillotine. The blade gets raised with her blood, this symbol holds her in place. And it’s what we need you for.”

“We?”

She rolled her eyes and hissed at the hot fries when she tried to grab one. “Don’t be such a pedant. We. Me. I. You and me. Us. _The world._ Whatever. You’re the only one around that’s got the umph to even make a bad bitch like Lilith _bleed_ , let alone drop the blade on her.”

There were sacred sites all over the world—the spokes, three dimensional—that were places the trap was accessible.

“Ilchester, Maryland. St. Mary’s Convent is one of them.” Ruby watched with greedy eyes as the lobster was settled on the table in front of them. She shrugged out of her jacket after waving away the help, baring pale shoulders and slender arms. “C’mon, Sam. Help me with this monster,” she said, smirking at her own pun.

Sam knew there was more to this, but he allowed a beautiful woman and the scent of rich food to distract him for just a little while.

She went back to her side of the table. They ate, made a mess, teased each other about bibs and seafood fingers and Ruby kept him in beers and suggestive jokes that had him laughing despite himself. But it didn’t last. Their dinner was cleared away and when Ruby ordered expensive scotch, two doubles, please, he knew the worst of it was coming.

He decided to beat her to the punch coming his way.

“Ruby, Dean’s got these scars on him… He said they’re from _dogs_.”

Ruby paused mid-sip, then took a big gulp. “Oh. Ugh. Yeah, well, sorry to break it to you, Sam, but it’s probably exactly what you’re thinking. There wasn’t a lot of kink-shaming going on at that place.”

“Jesus christ.” Sam closed his eyes, disgusted, dizzy with it, horrified.

Ruby was wearing a pitying, down-tipped smile when he felt he could open his eyes, move again at all without puking.

“Where are they?” he asked, mouth dry.

She frowned. “The dogs? Fuck if I know—”

“No! The—the _people_! You said—you said it was like a chain, that place, right? Where are they? Where do they do that? Where do they keep people like Dean? _Who_ are they?”

“The customers or—”

“Ruby, stop playing stupid!”

She crossed her arms and shook her head, but when Sam stood his ground, she sighed and threw her hands up. “Listen, it’s bigger than you know, okay?”

“How big?”

“You don’t—there’s no point in you knowing. You’d be in over your head!”

“Are you gonna tell me or not?”

“ _Not_.”

“Fine. I’ll find out on my own.”

“Oh, pfft, good luck with that. Chances are, they’ll find _you_ before you find them.” And then she snapped her mouth shut like she hadn’t meant to say that.

“What do you mean? Are they looking for us? Looking for _Dean_?”

Ruby sighed. “Of course they are, dummy. He was a cash-cow.”

Every last bit of the earlier humour left him. She was so disgustingly callous about—about _everything._ “I hate you.”

That cat-tail curl of a smile and she leaned back, swishing her drink. “Hate you, too. Look, I was gonna tell you that before you left tonight, okay? You shouldn’t stay in one place for too long. Moving around is the safer bet right now, between them and this Lilith thing. She’s gonna figure out we’re on her scent eventually and she’s not the type to wait for the war to come to her.”

“Great. Fucking _great._ ”

“It’s not that big of a deal, is it? You guys move around all the time.”

“No, I know. It’s just…” _They’re after Dean again._ “It’s fine. Anyway… What else? About Lilith. I get the feeling there’s more to this.”

“Can’t hide anything from you.” Ruby drained her glass then chewed her lip for a moment. “The thing is, Sam, according to this—” she hauled the book back onto the table, scanned until she found what she was looking for “—there’s a pretty big caveat to killing her.”

“What is it?”

“Okay, so what I said before, about the next demon just taking her place once you kill her?” She feigned skimming the pages again, but Sam was sure she had it memorised by now. “So, yeah… Here it says…she’s got an important station in Hell. ‘The underworld’, these heathens called it, but it’s the same thing, and if she’s not there to fill it—you know, _dead_ —whoever kills her…”

The food turned to lead in his stomach. “Has to take her place.”

Ruby said nothing.

“Holy shit, Ruby. I-I— _I have to take her place_?”

She nodded, wincing up at him.

“I—no. There’s got to be another way!”

“Not according to this. I’m sorry. It has to be done in a certain spot, a certain way, and whoever does it, has to go back to the underworld—”

“To _Hell_ ,” he interrupted.

“Yeah, okay, _to Hell_. But, Sam! The _whole world_ is at stake here!”

He put his hand up to silence her, and there was _that_ flinch again. He shifted uncomfortably, too hot, too full, too buzzed to deal with all this.

First things first.

“If I… Whoever kills her and, and takes her place… Won’t—doesn’t that mean they’ll become a demon, too?”

“Technically. But that’s why you’re _perfect._ ”

“Thanks.”

She made an impatient noise. “No, I mean because you’re _good._ And what if—Sam, what if you _took over Hell_?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Look, remember what I said? I remember being human. I’m not _bad._ Okay, I’m a little ribald or whatever, but you, Sam. You’re strong. And so good. With your powers as a demon, you could take over Hell! _Rule it._ ” She reached across the table to him, caught his clenched fist in her warm hand, coaxed it open so she could get her fingers between his. “Sammy, you could change everything. If you said yes to it, you could shut up shop. Keep the rest of the demons where they belong. Out of the human world.”

His heart was hammering, and weirdly enough he felt like he was starving all of a sudden. Hollowed out, empty. It had been days since he’d been this close to Ruby…

“What, uh—” He had to clear his throat, tried again. “What do you mean, ‘say yes’?”

“Well, it’s just part of the ritual. You gotta be like, ‘Yes, I accept,” or something. I’m not a perfect translator here, but maybe you’ll hear a voice or a command or whatever, maybe some fiery script in the air, asking if you’re willing to do the thing, and you have to say yes to it. Or else it falls apart, Lilith lives. And I imagine she’ll gut you immediately. But if you do…you could lock down Hell _forever._ ”

“H-how long… How long do I have?”

“Depends on how much damage you are willing to let Lilith do in the meantime.”

That was a fair answer. But:

“I can’t leave Dean. Not…not yet. I just found him. He’s…”

“Oh, no, I totally get that. I mean, I’m not trying to come between you and Dean.”

“That almost wasn’t sarcastic.”

Ruby winked at him. Squeezed his hand once more, then let go. Picked up one of the empty Pilsner glasses and, after a quick glance around—they were the only people in this corner of the restaurant—she lowered it under the table.

“What are you doing?”

“Well, since you’re obviously gonna take your fucking time about this, we can’t let your tolerance level get low. It’ll take a lot of juice to do what needs to be done and honestly, I don’t know if you can o.d. on demon blood. I have a feeling you can’t, but I know how…buzzed you get.” Ruby slipped out of her seat and back around to his side, the glass full of her blood.

Sam’s mouth flooded with saliva even as he recoiled from it. “N-no! What? Here? Are you—”

“Do I look like I’m joking, baby?” She pressed the glass into his hand and herself up against him, blood still dripping weakly from her wrist, healing already. He had to accept the warm glass or she was going to drop it in his lap. Ruby went up on one knee, mouthing against his cheek.

“Get it while it’s still hot,” was purred into his ear. When he just looked at it in his hand, blood sticking to the rim like claret gone wrong, she put fingertips to the bottom of the glass and tipped it towards him. “Drink, Sammy. You need it. You need to protect Dean, at least, don’t you? This will help. And we can do it like this from now on if you like. It doesn’t have to be so messy.”

With the glass to his lips, her hand dropped to his leg, slid up, cupped him. “I missed you. I want you. Can I have you, right here? Just in my hand. I want to feel you. Please, Sammy? Shh, just drink—”

And he did. Flavourless somehow until it was too late. Then it was _Ruby_ , the sea salt-sweet of her, the cloying perfume, and something that wasn’t spicy but scalded all the way down his throat. Lit his stomach up, shot like a backdraft through the rest of him and she was tugging at his jeans, opening them, shoving her hand in and around him.

“Miss this, so much.” Whispered words, tug and pull and he was free and the glass was empty. “Want more?”

“Ruby—”

She perched the glass on his thigh, not a bad comparison against his cock. He pulsed as she used a nail to open the barely-healed scar at her wrist and filled it. Put wrist to her mouth before kissing him, pushed her blood-slippery tongue between his lips. He moaned, then let his head fall back as her hand clutched him again, stroking hard.

“Drink, Sam.”

Slower this time, savouring it, though he would have killed himself if he’d thought that actual word. If he’d realised he was timing it so that when he shifted up, when she knew he was seconds from coming and she ducked down between the table and him to catch it in her mouth just like he knew she would, he had to lift the glass out of the way. Drained the last of it while holding her down until she struggled halfheartedly.

He closed his eyes, dropping the glass on the seat next to him. Felt her milk the last of his come from his body.

Wanted to see green eyes when he opened his own.

A ridiculous tip was left and she didn’t kiss him again when they parted. But she got a promise from him.

“Nobody else can do this,” she repeated, as white as the snow gently drifting around them. “And Sam, you know… I’ll be there with you.”

“You will?” He was sweating, steam rising from his skin as he unlocked the Impala.

“Yeah. Of course.” She nudged his boot with the toe of her own playfully. “Demon, remember? I won’t leave you all alone. I’ll be right there to remind you who you really are. Okay?”

It wasn’t okay, but it wasn’t like he could just ignore this and let the world end around him.

She smiled brightly at his silence. “Okay!” There was blood on the collar of her blouse. “Three days. I’ll see you then.”

Bobby and Dean were playing cribbage when Sam got back to the house.

“How’s the demon bitch?” Dean asked, not looking up from his cards.

“Boys,” Bobby growled.

“Bobby—” Sam cut himself off. It wasn’t Bobby’s fault. Sam either shouldn’t have told Bobby he was meeting Ruby tonight or he _should_ have told Dean. Either way, it was a good fucking thing he’d given himself time to think before coming back.

He went to the fridge, opened the door, double checked himself in the light for any blood. Clean, he snagged fresh beers for everyone and sat at the other end of the kitchen table.

“She had some really good information, actually. A potential fix for the Seals breaking.”

Bobby put his cards down and leaned forward, flicking a hand at Dean. “Put it back. And don’t cheat.” Dean only glared at the ivory peg he was fiddling with. “Well, spit it out, son.”

Sam couldn’t tell them everything. That there was a way to kill Lilith, okay. That it was a ritual, fine. That he would have to take her place if he did it, no way.

“Where’s this book?” Bobby wanted to know.

“Ruby isn’t done translating it. But I remember the symbol. Maybe we can pull something from it. I’ll see if I can get the book from her—” he took a drink instead of saying ‘next time.’ Bobby passed a notepad to him and Sam sketched out the spiral. At worst, Bobby would come across the same information that Sam already knew, and they would go from there. And maybe…just maybe Ruby was wrong. Maybe there was some loophole, or maybe she was lying to him for some reason.

Either way, he hadn’t said that he’d do it. Not yet.

But the more Sam thought about it, she was right. He really was the obvious choice if it had to happen.

Bobby was eager to research just based on the sketch and the little bit of information Sam doled out, and left the brothers at the table.

“Dean—”

“ _What_?” he snapped.

“I know you’re pissed—”

“‘ _Pissed_ ’ doesn’t cover it,” he hissed, his fury blazing from his eyes when he finally looked at Sam. “You lied to me. Like I’m not good enough to hear what she has to say to you about all this. Unless of course you weren’t just talkin’ to her. Huh? You left me here like, like—like your fuckin’ _old_ _lady_ , while you went off with some slut. Is that it? Needed some sulphur-scented cunt to really get you there?”

“Dude, stop it.”

“Fuck you, Sam. Tell me it ain’t like that, then.”

“I’m not—” And they’d been here before, and Sam hadn’t said the right thing then, either. And there was something else… Some new idea wiggling in the back of his mind. If…if he had to do this thing. Kill Lilith. Go to Hell in her place. _Leave Dean._ Then…what was happening between them, this thing Dean was pushing, what he wanted from Sam, it should stop. _Had_ to stop. Dean couldn’t anchor himself to Sam just to lose him. Dean needed to be strong on his own.

Dean was waiting, one eyebrow up and Sam knew that look. His brother had some biting remark ready, some condescending jab.

“You know what?” Sam gritted. “You can think whatever you want. You said you trusted me—well, I trust Ruby. I _have_ to. She’s strong and smart, and she’s trying to help us! Dean, you’re all fucked up right now. I know you don’t want to hear that, but it’s true. You need to get a fucking grip and just work on getting better.”

Okay, so maybe that wasn’t nicest way to go about helping Dean be strong on his own, but he didn’t seem to want much more than a fight right now.

Dean’s shoulders twitched and Sam tensed, expecting—he didn’t know what exactly, but it wasn’t for Dean to stand up. Carefully. He nodded to himself before glancing once more at Sam, watery-eyed, then he turned without another word and went to the room they'd been sharing.

Sam sat where he was at the table until Bobby reappeared maybe an hour later. It was too soon for real results but Bobby wasn’t discouraged.

“Sorry ’bout tellin’ Dean where you were, Sam,” Bobby said.

Sam looked up from the spiral drawing. “It’s okay.”

“Well, it’s not really. He guessed, and I wasn’t gonna lie. Dean needs someone he can trust. It’d be nice if it was you, considerin’.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s kinda just habit. N-not lying to Dean. I mean Ruby. Dealing with her on my own. And I don’t know how open she’d be around Dean.”

“Plus, he might just try to kill her. ’Cause, y’know, she’s evil.”

Sam almost laughed. “Yeah. That. But…she’s been okay so far. She even—she said we should leave. Me and Dean. Keep moving around. Because…Dean… They’re looking for him.”

Bobby grimaced. “And we still don’t know who ‘they’ are?”

Sam shook his head. He didn’t want to admit that Ruby wouldn’t tell him everything she knew about that place. “I want to find out, though. I know there’s a lot going on already—”

“That’s an understatement.”

“Yeah, but maybe I can at least get them off our tail? If you could—”

“I’ll keep an eye out. Ask around. Maybe when he’s ready, Dean can tell you more about it. See if he remembers any details that would help pin ’em down.”

Sam nodded, not sure if _he’d_ ever be ready to know more.

“So you bugging out tomorrow, then?” Bobby asked.

“Yeah. We’ll keep on the Seals, and you can call us if you see anything big. Ruby has a plan to sort of herd Lilith where we need her to be. Draw her out. But any Seal we can keep from breaking will buy us time.” A yawn snuck up on him suddenly and he shifted, stretched, legs numb from sitting on a hard seat for so long. “I’m gonna, um, sleep on the couch.”

“’Night, son,” Bobby called, heading upstairs with a stack of decaying books under one arm and an Irish coffee in his other hand. Sam kicked off his shoes, flopped down on the couch, and was asleep in minutes.

Sam dreamed of hellhounds. He and Dean had a run-in with one before, a few years back. Dean hadn’t had to face it, but Sam was with the vic, had protected the guy from the invisible monster while Dean worked to break the deal that had the hellhound after the guy in the first place. Invisible, yeah, but still terrifying. Damage to doors and walls gave evidence of the beast’s incredible size. A scent of sulphur and burning dog hair stole the breath from Sam’s throat. Razor sharp claws left long, deep gouges in the floor, and the thing was loud, snarls and loose-throated howl, rising in pitch towards a full scream—

Sam jerked awake, the howl ringing in his ears.

Not a howl.

He stumbled, blurry with sleep, to the room Dean was in. The noise Dean was making stopped and started twice before Sam got to the door, and he opened it just as Dean drew breath to start screaming again.

The room was stifling somehow. Sam fell to his knees next to Dean’s sleeping form. Almost knelt on one of Dean’s arms. He was splayed out, limbs spread away from his body. Back arched, up on the crown of his head. When Sam touched him, hand to Dean’s neck, he collapsed. A warm air puffed out from under the blankets, scented with Dean’s sweat and fear, and arousal. Sam knew it now, soft and clean and secret, intimate. It made Sam’s mouth water. Reminded him of Ruby’s blood somehow.

“Dean? Hey, c’mon. I got you. Wake up, man.” He lifted Dean’s head from the soaked pillow. “Shh, hey, you’re okay.”

A whine, some kind of garbled noise, and Dean gasped. Opened his eyes. Wide. Frightened. Arched again.

“Shh—” Sam tried again, but the noise wasn’t translating for Dean. He thrashed at the sound, kicked off the sleeping bag and moved like he was trying to get away. Sam caught him around the ribs. “No, no. Hey, Dean, you’re safe!”

And he was so hot, slick in Sam’s arms. Shaking, drawing in heaving breaths, and Sam couldn’t help it. Pulled Dean in against him, laid down and slung a leg over Dean’s so he could hold him in place while he ran his hand over Dean’s chest. His thumb flicked across peaked nipples and Dean wasn’t struggling anymore. Holding his breath, his face tucked into Sam’s neck. Sam petted him, pinched one of his nipples again before skimming his hand down over Dean’s hollowed belly, lower. Curled his fingers around Dean’s damp, hard cock. The breath Dean was holding blasted against Sam’s neck.

Quietly, and hurt: “I can smell her on you.”

This wasn’t going to work. He let Dean’s dick go and sighed. “Dean, we need all the help we can get.”

A bitter, coarse laugh. “Got that right.”

“No, I mean—”

“ _No._ I know what you _mean_. I can’t help, because I’m weak and ‘fucked up’, so you need this demon tramp. I get it. Just—leave, Sam. And take a fucking shower.”

Sam shoved himself up, using Dean as a prop. Made him grunt at the pressure on his chest. Stood over Dean in the darkness, wanted to jerk off right there, cover Dean in it. He’d protest, but Sam knew if he told Dean to shut the fuck up and lay still, he’d do it. He had Dean in the palm of his hand, really. And for some unknowable, fucked up reason, Dean was totally comfortable there. Sam could—he _could_ close that hand, drag Dean down with him in doing what he was more and more sure he would have to do. Kill Lilith. Take her place. Maybe…maybe rule Hell itself.

It had to be better to drop Dean. _Now._ It had to be the right thing to do. And Dean was already mad about Ruby… An easy out for Sam, then. Using her. Dean, being Dean, would never let Sam do this thing. Would never believe in him being _able_ to do it. Staying good (if he was even good in the first place, with demon blood already in him without Ruby’s help). And so what if he wasn’t? As long as he killed Lilith…someone else could take care of him later. Maybe it would be Dean. Sam kind of liked that idea.

His heart was trying to break ribs and his cock ached between his legs, and Dean was still sprawled on the floor, a shadow.

“Okay, Dean.” Sam turned, fumbled for his bag, and left the room, shutting the door behind him.

He made himself come in the shower, eyes closed, resting his head on his forearm. His thoughts wouldn’t settle, skipped from latex to bare arms under a leather jacket, drinking blood and kissing his brother, and it was only that confusing sensation of frustration-turned-arousal that made him persist. A loose fist, lots of water, almost like a mouth on him and he was exhausted from the effort when he finally washed away the evidence and dried off.

He expected the house to be dark and quiet when he opened the bathroom door, a towel around his waist, but Dean was in the kitchen. Sam could have turned back to the library and the couch, but curiosity got the best of him. He peeked in just as Dean dropped a pill into a glass of orange juice.

“What’s that?” he blurted, stepping into the room.

Dean swirled his glass carefully and stepped away from Sam, keeping the big table between them. “Methadone. The pills are crap at dissolving. Gotta do it one at a time, keep adding juice.”

“Metha—are you fucking _serious_? Where the fuck did you get _methadone_?”

Dean shrugged. Sipped, swirled. “The other night,” he mumbled into his glass, finally glancing at Sam over the rim. At, then away, then right back at him, taking in the towel hanging off his hips with slitted eyes. He swallowed the rest of the juice. Checked the bottom of the glass then set it in the sink. “Wasn’t gonna sleep anymore anyway,” he offered. “Figured if it keeps me up, no big deal. Maybe it’ll knock me out. Who knows. It hasn’t done much so far.”

“So far? How many have you taken?”

Dean held up three fingers. “Tonight, anyway.” He was in sweatpants and t-shirt. Sweating through the latter. Hair matted and fluffed up on top, stiff with old gel and probably a little blood still.

There wasn’t anything Sam could do about the drugs at this point. “How’s your head?” he asked instead.

Dean made to scratch at the cut, wrinkled his nose. “Fine. You gonna stand there and freeze your nuts off or what?”

“Oh. No. I just—” but Dean was already turning his back on Sam. Rinsed his glass out and kept rinsing until Sam finally left.

Sam dressed in a hurry, but not for sleep. Driven by some half-examined urge, he booted up and stuffed his bag together. He caught Dean just as he was about to go back into the room. “Get dressed,” he said. “We need to leave.”

Dean studied him for a moment, squeaked his tongue against the back of his teeth, but went into the room without a word. Left the door open as he started stripping, too fast for Sam to turn away before he saw those scars on Dean’s shoulders again, then Dean’s ass as he dropped the sweats and bent over his own bag. Another urge almost took Sam right up behind Dean and to his knees.

He scrawled a note for Bobby on a tattered notebook, left it on the kitchen table. Texted Ruby with a ‘don’t text back’ sign-off. Dean appeared, dressed, his clothes hanging off his skinny frame.

“So, what’s the fuckin’ hurry?”

“I’ll tell you in the car.”

Dean dropped his bag on the floor. “No, you’ll tell me now.” Lifted his chin as he said it. Showed Sam his throat. Was trying to goad Sam into a fight. Into forcing him.

Sam walked out of the house.


	14. Chapter 14

The car was warm inside by the time Dean joined him. Without speaking, Sam pulled out of the junkyard and headed east.

“So?”

It was three in the morning. A light dusting of snow covered up the worst of the scenery, gave a little shimmer to the city as Sam maneuvered through it, heading for the highway. Dean matched the landscape in a grey and white flannel, shadowed eyes glittering in the streetlights they passed beneath. His voice seemed muffled and he was breathing hard.

“I can’t believe you’re taking fucking tweaker pills, Dean.”

“Hey, they’re for pain and shit, too, y’know.”

“We just got you clean—”

Dean laughed. “Clean. Yeah, we’re both super clean.”

Sam tensed. “Uh, what?”

“You use any of your freaky powers lately? Throw tables around with your mind? Spidey senses tingling?”

“N-no. I mean— _no_.”

Dean bared his teeth in some kind of smile. “Well, good. ’Cause I might have thought you’d have used it to try and find me. But you didn’t. Good.”

Even looking at him, Sam couldn’t tell if Dean was being sarcastic or not. If he was bitter that Sam hadn’t used all his resources to find him. …When he actually _had._ Sam said nothing. Gripped the wheel and put the pedal down.

“ _So_?”

Sam sighed. His insides were twisted up. He didn’t know how Dean would react to the news the club was still after him, but it wasn’t fair, or safe, for him not to know.

“Ruby—”

“ _Great._ ”

Stubbornly, Sam talked over him “—said those people—that place, they’re looking for you.”

Eyes on the road, Sam felt rather than saw Dean go completely still. More gently, Sam continued, “She said it was a good idea if we kept moving around. We—I don’t know what to do about them right now. How to find them again. Why they’re after you. I mean, there are obvious reasons probably, but I don’t know for sure. Um, d-do you? Is there something specific, o-or are—do they just want their property back, or what?”

Silence. When Sam looked over at him, Dean was staring out the passenger window, holding himself stiffly. Hands balled into fists on his thighs, curling and uncurling. Scratching his nails over his palms.

“Dean?”

“I killed people, Sam.”

Sam wanted to pull over at the sound of Dean’s voice. Wanted his hands free to touch Dean, to grab him, hold him, because the way he said it sounded like a deathbed confession, guilty last words before a rooftop jump. He kept going, gave Dean the space he needed.

Dean leaned back in the seat, legs spread, his head down. “ _People._ Fuckin’, like—girls, mostly. Some guys. Boys, really. Just kids, teenagers nabbed off the street. College kids, thought they were gonna make money as escorts or somethin’. They were brought to me, and I did exactly what I was told to. I was _really_ good at it.”

“God. Dean. How…how did you do it? Not—I mean, _why_?”

“I tried to get them to kill _me_ , first. The, the m-masters. I fought. I wouldn’t eat; that’s how I ended up tubed. And the dope made it a lot harder to fight. I couldn’t not get addicted, y’know? But I tried. Not do what they told me, not…perform. They tried torture.” Dean flexed his fingers before glancing over at Sam, but dropped his eyes at the last second. “Then they tried you. That worked.”

“Me? What do you mean?”

“Told me they’d get you if I didn’t cooperate.”

“Oh. Oh, god. Dean, I’m sorry.”

“Nah.” Sam caught his mirthless smile. “Don’t worry about it. I just knew I couldn’t let that happen. If I did what they wanted, then you’d be safe, so…I did.”

“Did you know that? That I was safe? They could have been lying.”

“They had demons on their payroll. Used them to keep an eye on you. Brought me pictures. The last one, you were in Chicago. I saw it on some business you were standing in front of.” Dean licked his lips, rolled them between his teeth, biting, holding them there, still refusing to look at Sam. He wanted to keep talking, Sam could tell, but couldn’t.

“The demon,” Sam started, giving Dean time to get himself in control again, “must have lost me in Illinois. I-I made a hex bag. Otherwise, we—I couldn’t have gotten anywhere near you.”

Another nod, and if Dean had heard his stuttering, he made no mention of it. He was somewhere else, back in time, and when he started talking again Sam knew he had to listen.

“That girl. The redhead. Remember?”

Sam did. Crimson, pale, wet, suffocating, the girl on the altar in the room where he’d found Dean.

“Anna,” Dean said. “I knew her. She was the one that, that…took care of me, or whatever. You know, like, helped me when I was too high to do it myself. Alastair let her stay with me sometimes… Alastair was m-my—the—”

“I know who he was, Dean.”

Dean glanced over at him finally, eyes narrowed. Whether he remembered telling Sam about him when he was still high or if he guessed Ruby had intel, Sam didn’t know. And Dean decided not to dig. He rubbed at his eyes, then turned back to the window. “Anna—she… Uh, we, um—”

“You were lovers?” Sam asked quietly, his skin suddenly tingling all over. Dean nodded. He was still splayed out like he was half-buzzed and hot on a summer afternoon.

“Sort of,” Dean said just when Sam’s gut had finally settled, his nerves stopped hissing. “We were just…together. A lot. Sometimes we were left alone long enough to…forget where we were and we’d, uh… we—”

“I get it, Dean.”

Dean nodded again. “I liked her. And…then… That night. You were there. She… I was supposed to—Alastair told me I had to torture her. Like, like some kind of initiation for me, or whatever. Because I knew her. Gave a shit about her.” He finally moved, all at once, threw himself forward and Sam jumped, remembering how Dean had attacked him in the car before, but all Dean did was put his elbows on his knees and hang his head, hands clasped tight.

“I was going to do it, Sam,” he said to the darkness between his feet. “I was so fucked up, so fucking high. And… And I was gonna do it for you. I would have. To keep you safe I would’ve killed everyone they sicced me on. I know… I know, Sammy. That you wouldn’t have wanted me to, but…I couldn’t let that happen to you.”

Dean fell silent, and Sam didn’t push him. Dean was right. If given the choice, he would have rather been in that place with him than have Dean kill people for his sake.

Miles passed as they drove towards the sunrise hiding in the horizon. Dean was still hunched over and Sam thought maybe he’d nodded off until he caught a glimpse of his hands, clenching and unclenching.

“So,” Sam asked after flicking the wipers on so he wouldn’t startle Dean too much, “do you think that’s why? They want you to kill for them or something?”

“I dunno. Maybe. They wanted me to do some really specific shit to Anna. I think it was a ritual, but I was too fucked up to give a shit. I forgot about it until now.”

“A ritual? Like, how? What do you mean?”

Dean straightened up and glared over at Sam. “I don’t fucking know, okay? Just shut the hell up about it.”

“What if it’s something to do with the Seals? It could help us stay ahead of them—”

Another laugh, breathless. Dean sounded like he was having serious trouble breathing. And he was sweating even though it was near freezing outside and Sam had the heat on low.

“Fuck. Whatever, Sam. Just _shut up._ ”

“‘Whatever’? What does that mean? Do you remember—”

The way Dean turned on him made Sam flinch, swerve a little. Thankfully there was no one else on the road near them.

“Okay! Okay, Dean, sorry. I’m sorry,” he said. Dean grunted irritably and folded around himself, slid down in the seat and closed his eyes. Still breathing hard.

“Are you okay?” Sam asked.

“ _Shut. Up._ ” But his eyes opened, pinpricks of black in the yellow-green irises. Glared in Sam’s direction, but he couldn’t maintain it.

After a hundred miles, Sam got bored. He’d driven around for almost a year with no one to talk to, no distractions from the lulling rhythm of the road and the mother’s-hum of the car. Never one for talking to himself, his own voice had felt weak, rough, hard to control when he’d stop to order breakfast once in awhile or ask for a room. Two beds, for months at first. Without Dean to hustle most of the money, he’d had to downgrade to singles…

He rubbed his eyes. There was no sense in thinking about all that. Dean was right here with him now; even doped up, it was better than not knowing where he was. If he was dead. Ruby kept assuring Sam he wasn’t, and tried to entertain him when she could. He wondered what she was doing now. She would have something else for him, she’d said, soon. He hoped it was a better scenario to take down Lilith. Or—and not that he wanted things to go that far—maybe something that could kill the Devil.

“It’s too bad we don’t know where the Colt is,” Sam said when it was obvious Dean wasn’t going to sleep, that he was just slouched there, high as fuck. The sun was finally coming up, a pinkish streak under heavy clouds, and Dean was pale in the weak light, flushed at his cheeks like he had a fever. His laugh was a little delirious as well.

“Jesus _christ._ ” Dean shot upright in the seat, smeared his hands across his face, down his temples and neck, wiped his palms on his jeans. “Okay. Yeah!” he chimed, fake-cheer. “It would be _super_ to know where the Colt is! But we _don’t._ Why? Because that dumb bitch Bela stole it. May-y-ybe we could find _her_?” Dean snapped his fingers. “Oh. No. Can’t do that, either. You know why _that is_ , Sammy?”

Sam said nothing, concentrated on pulling the Impala off into a wildlife area. Walnut-something. They were in Minnesota now and Sam needed to piss and Dean was absolutely _seething_ next to him and it just seemed like a really bad idea to be driving all of a sudden. He parked the car in a tucked-away gravel lot, hidden from the highway. Kept his hands on the wheel, but was able to finally look over at Dean for more than a few seconds. Was met with dull eyes, that sick-stoned laxness on Dean’s face.

“It’s because I killed her.”

Sam frowned. “What? No, you didn’t.”

“Oh, no? Really? Were you there?”

“Wh—where? Dean—”

Dean dropped his head back and laughed—if that’s what the noise could be called. One long, almost-scream, a rattling whine, but he was smiling, lunatic. Said to the roof, “Fuck me. How much do you wanna bet _she’s_ the reason? That she’s how they found me in the first place?”

“Oh my god.”

Dean scoffed. “Yeah, your god. Not mine.”

Sam turned as much as he could in his seat. Dean twitched when he did, pressed himself against the passenger door. Flicked his eyes from Sam’s face to his hands and back. Sam stilled. At least with the car moving, Dean wouldn’t try to get out (hopefully), but now that they were parked… “Dean, are you saying—you think Bela had something to do with you being captured? And, and what? You saw her there? You _killed_ her?”

Dean nodded, his manic giddiness draining away. His lips moved, but Sam couldn’t make out the weak sound.

“Hey,” Sam said. Moved his hand, reached out a little, palm down on the seat between them. Dean looked at it, swayed forward like a charmed snake.

“The first one,” came out, the words snagging in Dean’s throat. He swallowed hard, tried again. “I was just so h-happy that it wasn’t me being hurt. I d-didn’t care who… Hooked already. He said I could have whatever I wanted if I killed the next person that walked into the room.”

 _Hooked._ Sam thought of the scars on Dean’s chest, wasn’t sure if that’s what he meant, or drugs. Maybe both.

“She, uh. She laughed at me. Seen her before then.” A little huff through his nose, still looking down at Sam’s hand. “She fuckin’—they let her… She watched…me. Uh.” Dean sniffed. Balled up his fists again and the rocking started. Stopped. Started, and Sam scooted closer. Enough that he could feel Dean’s body heat.

“Dean, you don’t have to tell me, okay? If you want to…”

But Dean kept going. “I-I had a razor. I shoulda just offed myself but…you—and, and she was crying and I didn’t care. I enjoyed it. After all that pain—it wasn’t me, finally.” He sucked a breath in between his teeth and his eyes were full, red and wet when he looked at Sam. “Yeah, um, so the Colt—” and he laughed, shaking loose twin tears “—probably not going to get that back. I guess I should have asked what she did with it, just in case.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Sam said. _It might have saved me_ , he thought. “I’m sorry you had to go through all that.”

Dean nodded absently. The nod turned into rocking again and he didn’t check it this time. Sam wanted to draw Dean to him, but no. He couldn’t. It would be too easy to go from there to something else. Instead, Sam leaned back against the driver’s side door, pretended he didn’t hear Dean’s odd little whimper. Closed his eyes on his brother’s slow tears, ignored him and the chill that crept over them eventually.

Sam still hadn’t pissed, but he could ignore that, too. He was really very good at ignoring things, honed lately on functioning with demon blood making him feel like he was always on the cusp of Hulking out. Not because of rage, though he had plenty to be angry about. It was strength. _Power._ That super-dangerous sense of invincibility his father had warned him about. Sam excelled now at pushing all that down, of maintaining. Or so he thought, especially when he was alone. The public proved otherwise. And he had been getting so good at pulling demons out of people. He needed to keep that sharp, too. Was going to have to find the time to get away from Dean, go hunting with Ruby.

It would be so much easier if Dean understood how important Sam’s powers could be, how helpful they were. If he could just do what he needed to without having to hide it from him. Now that Dean was being hunted, how could Sam even leave him alone? He’d never forgive himself if he came back from being with Ruby to find Dean missing again.

Sam was going to have to get rid of the threat, that’s all there was to it.

He must have drifted off after that thought, was startled awake by ringing. Dean was up, phone in hand, moved stiffly as if his head had been against the window, neck bent.

“Bobby, hey. Like shit. Hm? Oh yeah huh?”

Sam let himself out of the car and pissed on a cottonwood. Shivering, he went to the trunk. Took some time to brush his teeth and drink water. Dean went through the same routine. He looked terrible. Grey around the eyes, gaunt, slow moving. Sam wondered if the metal ring in his nose was cold. How it would feel against his own skin. Remembered that he’d kissed Dean yesterday.

“Jackson, Missouri,” Dean said after he’d rinsed and spit. “Bobby’s been trying other hunters, lookin’ for intel, but they’re not picking up.”

“Wants us to check on someone?”

“Yeah. About ten hours south. Said he’s going a state over to knock on few doors.”

They got back in the Impala, Dean in the backseat this time. Sam pulled onto the highway as Dean rifled through a bag.

“Dean, hey… Can you—don’t take any more pills or anything,” Sam said, watching him in the rearview.

“Sam, hey, go fuck yourself.”

“What the fuck? Seriously… For one thing, it’s not safe. Not when we’re working, or—you’re not that healthy to begin with!”

Whether or not he took something else, Sam couldn’t tell, but Dean laid across the back seat and folded his arms over his middle. “You try bein’ me, Sammy, see if you don’t wanna get high. Forget. Go numb.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“Yeah, well, tough.”

Sam tried a different approach. “I need your help, man. We gotta work together on this.”

“You got a partner,” Dean mumbled, eyes closed.

 _Shit._ Dean wasn’t going to forgive him for Ruby any time soon.

“Look, you can’t hunt high, and you know it.”

“You might be surprised.”

“Surprised at you dying ’cause you’re too fucked up to think fast.”

“Well, it’s a good fucking thing I’m not hunting for the next ten fucking hours, ain’t it? Besides, I don’t know if I want to hunt, anyway. I’ll knock on doors for Bobby, but all this shit with _Lucifer_? That’s some biblical bullshit I don’t think I wanna stick my nose in. ’Cause you know what? If there’s _the Devil_ , that must mean there’s _the God_ , and that guy can go fuck himself. Satan wants to ruin his creation?” A bitter laugh. “Be my guest. Most of it’s pretty fucked, y’ask me.”

“You don’t mean that, Dean.”

“Trust me, I do.”

Sam let it drop. Put in some Zeppelin for Dean’s sake, and turned south when he could.

He couldn’t really blame Dean, even if he didn’t believe him. He’d been through…‘a lot’ was a huge understatement. And he was still in early recovery. He was going to be angry and bitter and confused. He didn’t need Sam to guilt trip him, or argue with him.

Six hours in and closing on Missouri, Dean finally roused himself enough to complain about food. Tired of driving, sore, Sam didn’t think too much about what he was doing when he pulled into a diner until they were walking towards it and Dean started taking smaller steps, eventually moving behind Sam completely. Hiding. And when Sam couldn’t see him clearly, he had to keep turning and looking for him. Didn’t want Dean out of his sight. While Dean looked at the floor, ignored friendly staff, Sam was scoping out potential threats. Any one of these people could be after them, ready to steal Dean away again.

They were led to a table. Dean walked past it to a booth. Sam gave the waitress an apologetic smile when she sighed. Dean didn’t scoot far enough over for Sam to sit next to him, so he took the bench on the opposite side. He asked for coffee for both of them, but Dean wanted grapefruit juice.

“That’s weird,” Sam said over the sticky, plastic-coated menu.

“You’re weird.”

Still pissy then.

Dean never picked up the menu and just shook his head when Sam asked what he was having, trying to make friendly conversation. He shook it again when the waitress asked if they needed more time, but hunched his shoulders and didn’t ask for anything when it was his turn to order.

“He’ll have corned beef and medium eggs, rye toast,” Sam picked at random when the waitress shuffled awkwardly after a long silence.

Dean might have muttered thanks, but he had his head down so it was hard to tell. Sam tried to talk to him again, but he wouldn’t look up, wouldn’t talk back. Looked at his lap and twitched his shoulders occasionally.

“I’m sorry,” Sam finally said. “I should have just found a drive-thru.”

“Mm.”

“Hey. Dean. Look at me.”

When he did, Sam actually felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, his body reacting viscerally to someone else’s fear.

“Jesus. Dean, you’re okay,” Sam promised, leaning forward. Curled his fingers into his palm so he didn’t try to touch. “Take a deep breath. You’re safe, I promise. You’re right here with me.”

A blink, eyes fluttered closed, snapped back open wide, and Sam was kicked under the table as Dean flailed back from the waitress appearing with their breakfast. Sam waved her away as soon as he could, noticing out of the corner of his eye that Dean picked up his juice only to lower it to his lap. Had a flash of Ruby doing the same with the Pilsner glass. But it was still only pink when Dean lifted it back to the table, hand around the bottom of the glass. He looked at his food like it was something utterly unfamiliar. Scooted closer to the window, leaving the plate but taking the juice with him.

Sam ate slowly, giving Dean time to acclimate, but it didn’t do any good. He sipped from his glass but otherwise kept his eyes down and ignored all of Sam’s attempts to engage him. It wasn’t until he started swirling the last couple inches of juice that Sam realised what he’d done.

“Goddamnit,” he hissed, “you said you weren’t gonna take anything else!” Was ignored completely while Dean drained the glass. Dean dragged the plate over, fumbled with the fork, wincing as he dropped it against the ceramic plate. Sam drew breath to demand an answer but fell silent as Dean shoveled a forkful of beef and jiggling eggs into his mouth…and swallowed them without chewing. He did it again, then Sam jerked the plate away from him.

“Dean—”

In one blurred movement, Dean slammed his fork into the tabletop, bending the tines and gouging the wood, and swept the plate off the table. It sailed across the diner and smashed into a thankfully empty chair. There were a few loud gasps from patrons, squeaking of seats as people turned to see what the clatter was. The waitress hurried over.

“What happened? Is everyth—”

“ _Get away from me_!” Dean bellowed at her, rage twisting his face into an ugly mask. She jumped back, and Sam scrambled up.

“C’mon, Dean, we need to leave.” He threw a twenty on the table and reached for Dean’s arm. Was grabbed by his wrist and thrust back, hard. The waitress was gone, probably phone in hand ready to call the cops, and a couple trucker-types at the counter were on their feet, watching the brothers.

“ _Dean_. Let’s _go._ ”

Dean lurched out of the booth and stalked through the diner. Sam followed him, glad he had the Impala’s keys in his pocket.

At the car, Dean put his hands on the roof and leaned into it, his whole body tense and vibrating.

“That’s getting really fucking old, you know that? You can’t keep throwing fits!” Sam hollered at him.

“Yeah, what I really want is to throw a punch,” Dean snarled. He took a huge stride away from the car as if to do just that, but Sam lunged forward and grabbed his arm again. This time Dean couldn’t shake him off and Sam got just the right grip to spin him around, arm behind his back. Slammed him up against the car. Let go of him almost immediately when he felt Dean rock his ass against his groin.

It had been too easy to overpower him, Sam realised. Dean _wanted_ Sam to fight him. Manhandle him. Pin him. Dominate him.

Dean let out a frustrated growl and bounced off the car, coming right back at him, giving Sam no time to react with anything but instinct. Met Dean halfway, but stepped to the left, punch-shoved Dean in the side so that his own momentum forced him forward awkwardly. Sam knew Dean would fall: he did, skidding on his knees in the slush over the asphalt, and Sam pounced. Got a handful of Dean’s hair, and then his wrist when Dean reached up to rip his arm away.

“You _can’t_ keep doing this,” Sam said, coming down to knee Dean in the chest. Shook him by his hair. “Do you hear me?”

No answer, just a glare, but Dean was in there looking back at him. Wasn’t lost behind vacant eyes and rage and fear. He was listening, but Sam wanted him to understand—to _remember_. He leaned into Dean with his knee while he pulled on his hair, bending his head down low.

“Answer me!”

“Y-yeah. Okay! Fuck! Lemme up, Sam.”

“Apologise.”

“Wha—ah!” he protested as Sam tightened his fist in his hair. “M’sorry. Sorry!”

Sam shifted so he was crouching over Dean. “People can see you out here, y’know that?”

Dean shrugged, tried to tug free of Sam’s hold. Sam let go, but palmed Dean’s head back down when he tried to lift it.

“Stay there. Dean, listen, if you’re freaked out just—just look at me, okay? Focus on me. If I’m not worried, you don’t have to be, either.”

The main problem with that was Sam _had_ been worried. Paranoid. But he could work on it if it meant Dean would calm the fuck down.

Another nothing-answer. Sam grabbed Dean’s jacket and hauled him to his feet, slung him back against the car. Started patting him down.

“Where are they? Give me the rest of those pills.”

“Okay—here, stop fuckin’ pawing at me, _here_.” A prescription bottle with the label scratched off was produced. Sam opened it and dumped half a dozen pills into the snow. “What else?”

Dean frowned at him, looked down at himself, tried to shake the sludge off his wet jeans. “You’re not taking my pot.”

“Fine, whatever.” The irritation was cooling, and Dean seemed more like himself—himself lately, anyway. He was giving Sam some kind of _look_ from under his heavy lashes, was flattened against the Impala, his jacket open, legs spread, jeans tight, and Sam knew if he cupped him (wanted to— _no_ ) he would be almost-hard, at least.

“Get in the car.”

“Yessir.”

Sam’s stomach dropped. “Don’t say that to me.”

“Is that an order?”

“Knock it off, Dean.”

“Make me.”

“Jesus—Dean, what the fuck?”

“That, too,” Dean said, coming off the car at him again. Slower this time, hands out. Cold palms against Sam’s chest, citrus sweet lips on his, and Sam closed his eyes like the kiss hurt. Kissed him back for two seconds maybe, then put his hand to Dean’s throat and shoved him. Ignored Dean as he slipped and almost went down on his ass. Unlocked the car instead and got in. Popped the passenger side lock and started the car. Fished under the seat and concentrated on hooking his iPod back into the dash and finding something Dean would hate. Settled on Wolf Parade, shuffle. Thought about skipping when the first song that came on was called ‘An Animal In Your Care’.

Dean opened the passenger door just to reach through and unlock the back. Crawled in and flopped down across the seat.

“Turn the heat up. And this shit off.”

Sam turned both up and got back on the road to Jackson.


	15. Chapter 15

Dean had called the hunter’s phone, but only the answering machine picked up. Sam smelled blood as soon as he got out of the car in front of Jed’s house.

After the restaurant, Dean had slept some. Woke up flushed and sweating from the methadone when Sam pulled through a coffee kiosk. Sam ordered him a banana and chocolate smoothie with a couple shots of espresso in it and Dean had crawled into the front seat and sucked most of it down without complaint. Sam got a regular house coffee for himself. He didn’t need to be any more amped up than he was already.

It was strange, this last time with Ruby… He felt like the blood was staying in his system longer, the effect stronger than he was used to. He had no idea why, what had changed, but he was hot inside. His clothing irritated him, almost like it was burning his skin, and he wasn’t tired at all after only having slept _maybe_ ten hours in the last three days.

And now, stepping up to Jed’s front door, he knew the man inside was dead. The blood was coagulated, dried. Smelled rank and disgusting, and Sam wished he didn’t think that it should smell good in the first place.

He didn’t say anything to Dean about it. Acted shocked and saddened when they found the hunter with his chest split open, ribs like pleading hands around the hole inside him. Sam could relate.

They checked the rest of the house, just in case, though it was like a mausoleum already. Jed had laid out salt lines and was surrounded by weapons—he’d known something was after him. Sam kept an eye on Dean as they wandered through the place, but he appeared alright. Sweating a little more than normal and sighing a lot, but otherwise alert.

They went to the second floor. Sam cut Dean off at the bathroom—if there were drugs to be had, they’d probably be in there. Dean didn’t seem to notice and moved towards the bedroom.

There was nothing remarkable: toilet, tub, sink. Sam glanced down into the trash, but it had been recently emptied and had nothing more than a hairball and a cardboard roll in it. Turning to leave, he caught himself in the mirror, a hazy reflection behind condensation.

Not condensation. Frost. He breathed out and it hung heavy and white in the air. He started to shout for Dean but a cold blast slammed into him from behind, sent him hard into the sink. Another shove and he went over, banged down into the bathtub, smacking his head on the tiles. Vision blurred, he flinched back from a scarred hand reaching for him and he thought he caught a glimpse of blonde hair before the apparition dissipated into sparks and smoke as Dean swung a wrought iron curtain rod through it.

“Sam! Sammy, c’mon, get up, are you hurt, what was that, can you stand, are you okay—” One long babble from Dean as he pulled on Sam, trying to get him to his feet.

“That wasn’t Jed,” Sam managed, his ears ringing, pain lancing through his skull.

“Something else is here? Okay, it’s okay. How many fingers am I holding up?”

Sam swatted Dean’s hands away and steadied himself on the sink. His eyebrow was already bruising. Behind him, Dean looked pissed—and scared. But he wasn’t looking around, he was focused on Sam, worried.

“I’m fine. We need to get our guns.”

They rushed for the stairs, Sam still seeing double. Dean clattered down in front of him, but when his feet hit the ground floor, the door slammed shut on the stairwell, cutting them off from each other. Sam heard Dean yell his name, then someone else’s voice made Dean’s stop short.

Sam rammed a shoulder into the door, but it didn’t budge. He banged on it again, kicked the knob, but it held. He pressed his ear to the wood, trying to make out any words. It was a female voice he heard, then Dean saying ‘demon possessed,’ and ‘Meg’. Sam knew then he’d recognised the ghost—it was the body of the girl the demon Meg had possessed.

Sam turned and bounded back up the stairs. Went to the bedroom and to the windows. They weren’t painted shut thankfully and he squirmed through one and onto the little roof over the porch. Was able to get his feet on the railing below and drop down to the ground without breaking a leg. Sprinted to the Impala and got the salt gun out of the trunk.

They’d left the front door open and he prayed it wouldn’t shut on him before he got through it, but the ghost must not have counted on him coming up behind her. He burst through the door just as he heard his name from the dead girl’s lips. Fired. Dean jumped out of the way of the blast and the ghost disappeared.

“Dean, are you hurt?”

“No.”

Sam hurried forwards, scanning him anyway. “Are you—”

“She called you a monster, Sam. _You_. Why would she say that?” Dean was still scared-angry, but anger was in the lead. He jabbed a finger at Sam. “A _monster._ And she had a really good point. How many fucking bodies has this bitch Ruby burned through? How many girls like Meg?”

Like Sam had never thought of that. “Dean, not now. Bobby—”

For a second he thought Dean wasn’t going to move, that he was just gonna stand there and keep bitching at him, but he finally stalked past Sam and out to the car, digging in his pocket for his phone.

“Bobby. Yeah. Jed’s toast. Blown open. Yours, too? Yeah, but you run into any pissed off spirits at her house? You did? Us, too. That girl Meg, remember?”

They were back on the road, not going anywhere in particular, just away from the scene of the crime behind them. Sam winced at the low, too-bright sun coming through the clouds. He hoped Jed had family or friends who knew to salt and burn his body.

“Vengeful is fucking right. Bitch knocked us both around.”

Sam glanced over, only now seeing Dean had an arm wrapped around his middle.

“Hey, there was a-a, uh, mark, or scars or something on her hand. I don’t remember it from before—”

“I saw it, too,” Sam supplied.

“Sammy did—yeah, we’ll get a drawing to you. You want us to come—okay. Okay. Stay safe. Right, the panic room. Yup. Text me the addresses. Bye.”

Sam could feel Dean looking at him. Kept driving, waiting for it. Was utterly surprised when Dean said, “Your head hurt? That bruise looks bad.”

“Uh, y-yeah. I mean, I’m fine. I’ve had worse. The sun’s buggin’ me. I don’t know where my shades are, though. You—she got you, too?”

“Yeah, jumped me at the bottom. Got a couple good kicks in. Nothing’s broken. _Sure_ you’re okay?”

Sam glanced over, nodding. Took in Dean’s huge eyes and his pale face. “I’m okay.”

“Okay.” Dean sighed and was quiet for a while. Fiddled with his phone. Glanced over at Sam when he thought Sam wouldn’t notice, but he did.

Dean said, “I didn’t mean to bitch at you back there. About Ruby. I know you’re not telling me everything, Sammy. I’m not stupid. Seeing you hurt freaked me out, got me—it’s like I’m new to hunting all over again or something.” Dean rubbed his eyes, winced and hugged himself tighter. “I dunno… Meg, um, she said… She had a kid sister, did you know that?”

Sam shook his head.

“Yeah. Guess the sister killed herself after Meg died. Fucked up, huh?”

Sam tried to find the right word, ended up just nodding. Not wanting to know what part Dean thought was fucked up: one sibling being so upset about the other dying that they killed themselves, or the suicide, period.

Dean didn’t say anything else. Messed aimlessly with his phone. Sniffed a couple times.

“So,” Sam blurted, “what else did Bobby say?”

They talked about the ghosts—Bobby knew the one that tried to off him, too. Dean tried sketching the mark he’d seen on Meg’s hand, got it right with Sam’s help. Sent a photo of it to Bobby with his phone and got an immediate callback. Bobby knew what it was, and it was bad. He knew how to stop it, too, but putting the ghosts down wasn’t going to fix the Seal broken to raise them.

“Well, we’re battin’ a thousand here,” Dean grumbled. “Bobby’s got some more hunters he wants us to check on, a couple maybe-Seal leads. You up for it?”

He wasn’t. His head hurt fiercely and when he saw the list of addresses, his heart started pounding, making the throbbing worse. An hour later, sitting in the dim confines of a pink motel room one shade off from inducing insanity, Sam admitted he was nervous. Looking at the names Bobby supplied, putting them in nearest-to-far order, he tried to calculate at the same time the likelihood of running into someone who would try to get to Dean. The hunters were the safest of the bunch, probably, but the vics they had to speak to and towns they were supposed to eyeball—any one of them might take Dean away again, swallow him up.

When it came right down to it, Sam couldn’t care about anything but keeping Dean safe.

They hadn’t had the option of a king, so Sam had dodged that weirdness for now. Dean made up for it by stripping out of his coat and shirts as soon as they’d entered the room. Had stood half-naked in front of the big hanging mirror instead of going into the bathroom to check out his ribs, pawing at himself and twisting around to see the boot-sole bruise on his right side. Caught Sam staring at him, bags in hand, stock-still.

The scars that got to Sam, every time. He was used to Dean’s rough voice, shaggy hair, even the ring in his nose, and it wasn’t like he was _forgetting_ about the scars… It was the sensory overload he felt when he saw them. Hooks and claws, but were some of them burns? Blades, fingernails, teeth? Whips? Sam wanted to commit murder, looking at them. Wanted to touch each one with fingertips and lips, and have Dean tell him the names of everyone who would pay for putting the marks on his skin. He wished he could click the lights off and close his eyes and learn Dean’s new body like a blind man. Touch each old wound and press his love into them, somehow make all those hurts into things Dean would only ever associate with Sam afterwards.

And Dean saw all of that crawl across Sam’s face. Watched him in the mirror silently, fingers unconsciously prodding at his ribs. Arched a little and breathed deeply, wincing, eyes slitted at the pain. Bit his bottom lip and reflected a look back at Sam. Turned, and he was doing it again, like in the parking lot, coming at Sam all slow, his intent obvious.

“Doesn’t feel like they’re cracked,” Dean murmured, dragging his eyes over Sam’s mouth, his cheeks, up to his bruised brow. Lifted a hand like he wanted to brush Sam’s hair back and if Dean touched him—

Sam let the bags drop to the ground. Dean hopped back, startled, and Sam stalked past him, not-really meaning to bang into him but doing it anyway. Made Dean gasp and he felt a glare dart into his back. Got in the shower only to rush through it, nagging anxiety about leaving Dean even that much alone. Dean was at the table and they traded places without a word.

Dressed and clean and Dean dozing nearby, Sam felt a little better, more stable, right up until he went out to the Impala to get a number off one of their burner phones. That rush of anxiety again, making his stomach hurt and his head pound, mouth and eyes watering uncontrollably. He put a sweaty palm on the car to steady himself just as his phone rang.

It was Ruby. “Sam? Another Seal broke—”

“I know. Bobby said it’s the ‘Rising of the Witnesses’. We ran into one.”

“Are you hurt? You sound weird.”

That should have annoyed him but he found her voice soothing for once, sweet to the ear. “I’m okay. …I dunno. I feel kinda bad, actually,” he admitted. Slid down the Impala until he was hunkered against its side.

“Hey, lemme come see you. Maybe…maybe it will help. Could heal you. Y’know?”

“No,” he said. Closed his eyes and tried not to throw up at the gross foamy feeling in his throat. “It won’t help.” Then: “W-will it?”

“I dunno, baby. We can try.”

Pain like thunderclaps in his head. “Yeah. Okay. W-where—”

“I’ll come to you. Tuck your boy in and meet me outside.”

He managed a noise of assent and heaved himself to his feet, his world spinning.

Dean was curled up on his unbruised side. He never used to sleep in a ball. Sam blinked a few times to adjust his throbbing eyes, then stepped over to Dean and touched his arm lightly. Dean’s eyes flew open and he sucked in a rattling, terrified breath.

“Hey, no, Dean. It’s just me. You’re okay. Can you hear me?”

A nod, but Sam could feel Dean’s pulse, wild and pounding. Was still touching his wrist. Wrapped his hand around it and squeezed until Dean’s inhalations became steady.

“Okay. I’m gonna go get some supplies at that whatever-mart we passed on the way in here. _Don’t leave._ Where’s your gun? Put salt down and—”

“I’m not fuckin’ _twelve_.”

Sam laughed, relieved, even though it made his stomach hurt. “I know. I’m only—I—I want you to be here when I get back. Just—do what I said, okay?”

“’Kay, Mom.”

“Promise?”

Dean jerked his arm out of Sam’s hand and curled up tighter, shivering.

“I’ll be right back.” Heard Dean mutter ‘jesus christ’. Wanted to cover Dean up with a blanket. Turned the heat up instead as he headed for the door.

Ruby popped up on the other side of the Impala when Sam turned after tugging twice on the doorknob to make sure it closed properly. He flailed impatiently at her but she threw her hands up and mouthed ‘what’ at him. He hurried to the car and unlocked the doors, barely letting her shut the passenger side before he peeled out of the parking lot.

“What the hell? What if Dean had seen you?” Sam snarled, teeth gritted against the skull-splitting pain behind his eyes.

“Well, that’s the million dollar question: when are you going to tell Dean about what we’re doing?”

Sam groaned, blinked back tears and felt Ruby slide closer, put her hand on his thigh comfortingly. She smelled like burning leaves. “Yeah, uh, I just gotta figure out the right way to say it.”

“Sam, he's going to find out, and if it’s not from you he’s going to be pissed.”

“He’s pissed anyway. I mean, he already bitched at me about this psychic stuff.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, squinting through his fingers at the road.

“Pull over, Sam.”

They weren’t as far from the motel as Sam would have liked, but he was almost seeing double. “I haven’t had migraines like this since…since—”

“Since the visions started?”

He nodded, guiding the car into a little lot behind a muffler shop, closed on Sundays. Ruby was on her knees before he put it in park, her switchblade cutting a deep furrow through her tiny wrist. There should be scars there from how often they’d done this, but there weren’t. Sam took her hand in his and guided the wound to his mouth and she waited until his eyes met hers before releasing the blood flow.

Like an adrenaline rush, power surged through him. Didn’t lessen the pain in his head but coated it with throbbing pleasure until he didn’t know the difference. A red-hot coal deep in his skull.

“Easy, Sam!”

He used his teeth to hold onto her, thinking that more would quench the ember, would soothe the lava in his guts.

“Hey! Stop, dammit!”

An invisible hand slapped him, forced him back. Slammed him against the car door. Ruby was sheet white, black-eyed, her bloody, bitten wrist pressed to her breasts. Her other hand was out, holding Sam in place and her look of alarm was almost comical when he pushed easily out of the corner and came at her. Had her pinned on her back in seconds, arms tangled above her head, a hand on her chin, shoving it up so he could get at her throat.

“ _Wait_!” she shrieked, kicking for all she was worth. “Sam! Don’t! Can’t— _stop_!”

Sam could barely hear her; a tinny voice coming from far, far away, her fighting nothing more than rustling beneath him. It was only catching a truck rolling by on the street out of the corner of his eye that made him pause. Someone might see them, think he was…hurting…Ruby. He blinked down at her as she panted, fingers curled into useless claws.

“S-Sam, Sammy, wait. It’s okay! I know! I know you need more, okay? Just get _off_.”

“Oh. Oh, god, Ruby—” He lurched back. He was so _thirsty_. “What—I-I-I’m sorry!”

She righted herself, frowning down at her blood-smeared shirt. She sighed. “It’s fine, Sam. I had a feeling this day was comin’.”

“W-what day? What do you mean? No, don’t—” He snapped his mouth shut as she put a palm over the cut on her wrist, willing it closed.

“It’s _okay._ Listen, there’s these townhouses about six blocks away and I know someone there.”

The pain was winning through the pleasure behind his eyes again. “‘Know someone’? Y-you mean—”

“A demon. A crossroads demon, to be exact. They’ve got a day job at the elementary school. Guess he loves the scent of desperation single dads and soccer moms give off.”

Sam slid behind the wheel and turned the engine over. “Which way?”

Ruby gave him directions, putting herself back together in the rearview mirror as she talked, and they made a plan. She’d distract the demon while Sam put down a Devil’s Trap.

“Distract him how?”

Ruby rolled her eyes. “Gonna flash him my tits. C’mon, Sam. They all hate me ’cause I’m not backing Lilith. He’ll go rabid-dog as soon as he sees me, so be quick with the Trap, huh?”

“Ruby…”

“Aw, what’s the matter, baby? You worried about me? How _cute._ ” She winked at him. “Don’t bother. Worse comes to worse, I got a backup plan. And here.” She tucked a leather hex bag in his pocket. “That’ll shield you, for the most part.”

They pulled up to the curb across the street from a nondescript house in a windswept neighborhood, and she slipped out of the car and around the side of the house. He watched her go, waited for two minutes, vision jumping with throbbing pain, sweating, his stomach sick-hot. But he was alert. Ready for this.

When it was time, he crossed the street to the house, lockpick in hand, but he didn’t need it. He slipped inside quietly, unconsciously holding his breath against the sulphurous scent of angry demons. He could hear Ruby bickering with someone in the back of the house and went the other way. The living room was carpeted, so he flicked his knife open and started cutting. Pulled a large swath back inside the doorway and drew a pentagram and the appropriate sigils on the old floorboards with a paint pen kept in the Impala for this exact purpose. Carefully laid the carpet back down and shouted for Ruby.

“You brought a _Winchester_ to my house?” The guy flashed scarlet eyes as he stalked towards Sam. Just outside the living room, the demon raised both hands. Sam flinched—he couldn’t help it. Felt the air thicken around him, wrap like a tentacle around his throat and Sam sucked in a deep breath before he was choked completely, but the demon paused, confusion mixing with the anger on his face.

Ruby appeared behind the guy, her nose bloody and her upper lip swollen. “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she grumbled. “Just _go_!” She shoved the guy hard, propelling him into the Devil’s Trap.

The tension around Sam disappeared immediately. He coughed, staggered when he fell back onto his heels. The demon, a blond guy in his late thirties who reminded Sam of…someone… He couldn’t quite place it—was glaring daggers at Sam and pacing the inside of the Trap’s circle.

“That should have ripped your stupid head off,” he snarled.

Ruby scoffed. “You’ve got the grip of a five-year-old, Lance. Give it up.”

“Cunt.”

“Yeah, I can take a fucking pounding, can’t I? At least I don’t get myself trapped in my own home.” She squeezed through the doorway, edging carefully around the Trap, and went to Sam’s side. “You okay?”

“Kind of,” he replied quietly, head down, eyes blurred and feeling like they were coated in sand. With a quick look at Lance to make sure he wasn’t going anywhere, Ruby dragged Sam a few steps away.

“Sam… It’s because you need more. Blood,” she clarified when he frowned. “Demon blood. More than I can give you and live. And there’s only one way to get it.”

He argued. Of course he did, had to. Argued even though all he could think of was blood in his mouth, soothing the burn inside him, warming him up as he stood there shivering and protesting.

“Listen, this would be much easier if you’d just admit you need it. That you _like_ it,” she hissed impatiently.

“No! I don’t! And—and what about the guy? The actual school teacher in there?”

“He’s been dead for months. I checked. Car accident, was DOA on scene, but ‘miraculously’ came to in the ambulance. Sam, you _need to do this_. You’re plateauing, which is as good as withdrawals with this stuff. I told you you were gonna need to up the intake.”

“I thought you meant just more often! Not… _more._ ”

“Well, don’t think, ’kay? Just fucking _listen_. A lot of people are gonna die if you don’t do this. Oceans of people. And these fuckers—” she jabbed a thumb at Lance, glowering at them from inside the Trap “—are gonna be _everywhere._ O-o-or you—”

Sam put a hand over his eyes. “I know, Ruby. Just—I know, okay. _Fuck_. How… I mean… Do I—”

But Ruby said she’d take care of it. And she did. Inexplicably, she went to the kitchen. Sam heard something being poured down the drain and water sloshing, then she returned with an empty gallon-sized juice bottle and dragging a wooden dining room chair. She instructed Sam to carve another Devil’s Trap into the seat.

When it was ready, Ruby scooted it into the trap, then stepped inside herself. Sam shouted at her, alarmed, but she ignored him, reaching in her jacket and pulling out a knife. At the sight of it, the other demon backed as far up as he could away from her.

She gestured at the chair with the wickedly serrated weapon. Lance sat. “Good boy. Sam, wanna let me out now?”

He pulled the carpet up and scratched out part of the circle, releasing Ruby. Lance was trapped to the chair, however, eyes a dark blue now, huge and locked on the blade Ruby had in her fist.

“Backup plan,” she explained to Sam, kept it pointed at Lance as Sam secured his arms and legs to the chair with lamp cords. The big knife disappeared into her jacket again when he was done and she fished her switchblade from her boot before stepping up to Lance. “Lookin’ a little chubby there, Lancelot. How ’bout we lose around eight pounds real quick?” She smiled, the plastic jug dangling from her finger.

Lance rocked in the chair, fighting to break free. “No! No, no, don’t! He’s alive in here! I heard you! You don’t wanna kill—”

The rest of the words turned into gibberish. Sam kept his back to them. Knew it was cowardice, but he couldn’t face it yet.

When the scent of fresh blood hit him, he started shaking. Stared at the floor in front of him until it wasn’t anything at all, until he was as good as floating, just _wantwantwant_ inside a vague shape of himself. The pain in his head, the chill in his bones was fading more and more as if the mere proximity of demon blood was making him feel better. Distantly registered a spark from somewhere, something Ruby was doing.

Ruby was a tiny thing when he looked down at her, saw her pretty mouth moving over her perfect teeth. Had to listen hard to hear her, worked just as hard to ignore the sounds of a demon being bled to death behind him.

“—be easy, Sam. You’re gonna have to do things that go against that gentle nature of yours. There’ll be collateral damage…but it has to be done.”

She was holding out the jug, full now, the ‘Cranblast Cocktail’ label barely readable beneath the smeared blood.


	16. Chapter 16

 

Shopping after that was the least pleasant thing Sam had ever done. The lights of the store hummed the most annoying sound in the world, gave off a vibration that made his bones ache and his skin prickle. Faces seemed downright hostile or just _weird_. Distorted, like wavering holographic images instead of flesh and bone. He couldn’t tell if he was wired or exhausted, if he’d rather just rob the store for convenience or crawl under a clothing rack and take a nap. He kept turning around to talk to Ruby but she’d stayed back at the house to clean up the mess she’d made of Lance. He was slightly dizzy and wasn’t sure if he needed to throw up or take a shit but his body was definitely unhappy with its current predicament.

Ruby had assured him he’d adjust; that no, it wouldn’t hurt him to drink a gallon of blood. He could—and would have to, she’d firmly asserted—drink even more. He’d just have to get used to it, get over the gross factor.

Sam didn’t really know what he was doing in the store, but he’d told Dean he was getting supplies, so he couldn’t come back empty-handed. Salt, whiskey, first aid stuff, easy enough. A couple packs of t-shirts. Stuff to eat would be a good idea, but the smell of dry goods revolted Sam too much, and Dean wasn’t doing so great with food anyway.

He’d forgotten to ask Ruby about the book, but he caught a break when he drove by the library and saw that it had been open until two. That would make up for most of the time he’d been gone—although he shouldn’t have been gone so fucking long in the first place. Sam checked his phone. No messages from Dean; no answer when he called.

Whatever the blood was doing to him translated what should have been fear directly into calculated rage. He’d tear the fucking world apart this time if Dean was missing.

Why hadn’t Ruby had him drinking blood like this the whole time?

The destructive force building around him, that he was pushing like some kind of murderous brush guard, was met with and dissolved at a gentle pushback as he neared the motel. That Dean was still in the room was something Sam could sense as he neared the door. Sam shook himself, took a deep breath, felt like he was stepping away from the inferno inside him and wasn’t going to combust and take everything around him out.

Dean was on his bed, Sam’s laptop open and illuminating the glower on his face. He said nothing as Sam closed the door behind him, so Sam kept quiet as well. Tossed him half the shirts, waved the whiskey in his direction, left the salt in the bags by the door. Dean watched him the whole time, unamused and unappreciative.

Sam sat down on his bed when everything was put away. Waited; looked back at Dean. Then at his own hands. When it was obvious Dean wasn’t going to be the first one to talk and wasn’t going to give up Sam’s computer, either: “The library—” he started.

“What’s this look like to you?” Dean interrupted, eyes still on Sam as he tilted his head towards a little blackened pile of detritus under the bedside lamp.

“Um.” Sam shifted closer and peered at the obviously-burned collection. It could be…a bottle cap. Broken chicken bones. Bits of cylindrical paper, maybe spent firecrackers. “Like someone burned some trash from their car?”

“Yeah? That’s it, huh? ’Cause, now, _to me_ , it looks like the leftover guts of a hex bag.”

“Where did it come from?”

“I found it where Baby was parked before you left.”

Sam remembered Ruby standing right there earlier. “What? No. I mean, it could have been there when we pulled up. Looks like…” He poked a finger into the crumbling remains, and okay, definitely a bone in there, but not a bottle cap. A coin? A charred talisman? “Well, I dunno… But why would it be a hex bag?”

“You tell me. Or you might have better luck asking your girlfriend.”

“Dean—”

“Whatever, man.” Dean threw his hands up then slammed the laptop closed. Sam reached over and grabbed it before Dean chucked it at him. “It’s too burnt up to tell, but I think it’s fuckin’ hex bag and that bitch has been following you around, and how do you know she’s not conning you, huh? That she’s not messing with _us_? You _don’t_.” Dean swept the remains into the trashcan and went for the whiskey on the table. Moving slowly, though. Haltingly, like half his body was asleep.

“Did you take something?” Sam asked quietly.

A laugh, a droopy-eyed sneer over his shoulder. “Yeah. Pity on myself. What do you care?”

“ _Goddammit_ , Dean!”

“At least we agree on that,” Dean replied, teeth bared around the fumes as he drank from the bottle.

The rage came back like a building falling on Sam. He was tired, out-of-body with it, his grip on reality akin to the narrow focus of someone in survival mode. They needed to leave soon—anyone might have seen the Impala in front of the teacher’s house and eventually the guy would go missing (if Ruby didn’t just burn the house down altogether). And Sam had no one to depend on, _still_. Dean couldn’t be trusted to drive, to make escape plans, to even fend for himself in the most basic ways, and he seemed intent on making everything more difficult with his insistence on self-medicating, with his tantrums and accusations.

Dean only moved to put his thumb in the bottle when Sam rushed him. Like flying almost, moving with preternatural speed, all of a sudden Sam was up against Dean, and maybe he hadn’t had _time_ to move any more than that. And whether Dean was as light as he seemed or Sam was stronger than ever, it took no effort to lift Dean onto his toes (just like the demon had tried to lift Sam earlier). Both hands around Dean’s neck, eye to eye even with the extra inch Sam’s boots gave him. Dean blinked at him, tried to suck in air or speak; he was blowing spit past his lips and turning red, winced when Sam banged him against the wall.

“What are you _doing_?” Sam’s grip tightened, not really looking for an answer. “I told you to stop with the drugs, didn’t I? _Didn’t I_?”

Dean choked on his answer. The bottle still in one hand, he raised the other to Sam’s wrist, gripped it, tried to get some leverage, dancing on his toes.

“What the fuck did you take? Where did you get it?”

Dean couldn’t reply, and Sam wasn’t letting him. Was shouting in Dean’s face. Squeezed harder, hurt Dean like he was hurting Sam. …But Dean wasn’t doing it on purpose, one tiny, rational fiber of Sam’s brain informed him. It’s not like he was out to piss Sam off, to irritate him just for fun.

“Fuck.” Sam released Dean and snatched the bottle from him, backed away as Dean’s knees buckled. He hit the ground hard, gasping, retching slightly. Sam put the whiskey on the table and stood there, hands shaking while Dean slumped, head down, holding himself up with effort. “Dean, what did you take? Where are they?”

“F-fuck. Fuck. Fuck you, Sam.” Then Dean laughed, of all things.

This time Dean did flinch. Didn’t raise his head, but he cowered at Sam’s approach. Was yanked up onto his knees by the back of his shirt and yelped against Sam’s palm as his face was grabbed. Didn’t defend himself though, didn’t fight back. Hung from Sam’s grasp calmly, eyes on Sam’s, pupils dilated. Opiates again. Not methadone, though; somehow Sam knew that. Dean was more sluggish now than he had been, blood moving slowly under chilled skin. Sam pictured it as a half-frozen river, shards of whatever drug sharp and cracking through Dean’s veins.

“What do I have do, huh?” Sam asked, dug fingers into Dean’s cheeks to keep him from answering. “What do you need? Fuckin’ handcuff you in the bathroom when I leave?”

If Dean was trying to nod, Sam ruined it by shoving his head so Dean had to put his hands down behind himself to keep upright.

Sam closed his eyes, concentrated on the only plan he had. Let go of Dean abruptly and went to his bed.

“I’m not gonna do that,” he said, back turned on Dean. “You have to _want_ to get better. Dean… I need—please, man. I don’t—” — _want to do this_ , he almost said. But what was ‘this’? Go darkside? Fight with Dean? Admit to himself how messed up Dean was? Need Dean in a way that wasn’t right? Keep drinking blood until he became something dangerous? Became a demon?

“Need,” he heard Dean rasp behind him. A shuffle, then there was that soft pressure against him he’d felt at the door earlier as Dean came to him.

“Can’t keep me from doing what I want,” Dean said, the words low and broken from Sam’s hands.

 _Yes, I can_ , Sam thought. Power curled languidly through him, another flash of the crossroads demon, of resisting its hold on him. He shut his eyes tight again at Dean’s touch. Was tugged on, turned around. Wanted to bite the lips he felt on his own. Dean must’ve known, seen it on Sam’s face, and it was over quickly, like all their kisses so far.

“Tramadol,” Dean said, voice muffled by Sam’s chest, words spoken to the fingers skimming over his shirt. Catching on buttons, plucking at the hem. “Six of them. Looked it up. Prob’ly shouldn’t have taken that much.” Fingertips in the waist of his jeans now, pulling. Tight belt flicked open. “From Jed’s room. He didn’t need ’em anymore.”

“No,” Sam thought he said when Dean shoved both hands in his jeans, cupped his palms around his cock and balls. His body did the opposite, went thick and hard, pushed into the touch. Dean made a little noise at that, excited, encouraging.

“I don’t wanna do this either, Sammy,” Dean said, and it almost made perfect sense. “We don’t have to, you know. We can just stay here. Somewhere. Like this.”

Hands shifted, dragged on Sam’s jeans with the weight of Dean going to his knees again. Sam wanted to look but refused to. Dean was wrong. At least, half-wrong. Dean didn’t have to do anything if he didn’t want to. But Sam did. He had to save people because he hadn’t saved _enough_ people yet, hadn’t saved _the right_ people. People had died for him. _Because_ of him. He needed to give back. He wasn’t anything at all if he didn’t do that. He’d give to Dean, too. Had saved him, but it obviously wasn’t enough.

Stubble against his cock as Dean marked Sam like a cat, rubbed his cheek along the length of him. Put his tongue out, wet and soft against Sam’s balls and Sam flattened his hands on his thighs to keep from guiding Dean’s mouth deeper between his legs, then to keep from batting him away when the slick drag of his tongue became Dean’s open mouth on the head of his dick. Heat, but no suction. Holding Sam on his tongue and doing nothing else until Sam opened his eyes. Groaned because it hurt to look down at his older brother with both fists around his cock, mouth open, tongue out, right when a drop of clear precome dripped from him into Dean.

Kiss-quick, just a few seconds of that mouth closed over him, warm and soft and sucking, then Dean pulled back, slurred, “Do you want me to?” over the crown.

Sam shook his head. He _did_ , but he _shouldn’t._

“Make me stop.” Forcing it, Dean snaked forward and bit his thigh. Nipped the sensitive inner flesh as he jerked his hand over the head of Sam’s cock. Too much, and Sam reacted without thinking. Cuffed Dean in the ear, knocking him to the side. Shuffled forward so Dean fell on his ass and it was easy for Sam to scoop him up by the throat again and throw him against the other bed. Just a couple of steps, awkward with his jeans around his hips, but Dean was pliant, let Sam drag him upright and bend him backwards. Gave him wrists to hold and pin on the bed. Teeth barred the way back into his mouth at first, but Sam squeezed those wrists to snapping and Dean had to gasp, had to open up to him.

Fast, hard, hitting the back of Dean’s throat that he’d hurt already. He felt Dean try to suck, to wrap around him, but it was easier just to open wide and let Sam fuck him than attempt any finesse. Noises, and Sam shut his eyes again and focused on the mindless, cut-short groans.

He moved closer, leaned down, shared the burn in Dean’s throat as he tried to work himself inside it. Dean bucked, nowhere to go with how Sam had him caged in, but he twisted his head away. Spilled thick saliva over his cheek and neck as he panted, but Sam reached down and forced him back into place, plugged his mouth again and the bed creaked as Sam leaned against it with his knees and put all his weight on Dean. Knew he was hurting him as he kicked, trying to push up, get more of himself on the bed so he wasn’t bent so sharply.

Dean’s free hand thudded against Sam’s chest but he had no leverage and Sam just pushed harder, got a grip around the base of his cock and fed it to Dean until he choked on it. Heard a helpless, short whine. Squeezed himself hard, but it was too late (never should have happened in the first place), he was coming down Dean’s throat, his brother trembling from the posture he was being forced to hold as it happened.

“God, oh fuck.” Sam rolled away instead of collapsing like he wanted to. Fell onto the bed on his back and threw an arm over his eyes. Heard Dean slide to the floor at his feet.

A weak cough, then, “Told you,” Dean mumbled, but Sam didn’t care what he was talking about. Dean got to his feet and stumbled away and Sam uncovered his face to watch. Saw Dean go in the bathroom. He didn’t turn on the light, didn’t raise his eyes to the mirror. Ran the water and splashed his hands and face clean. It was hard not to hide from him when he started back towards the bed, but Sam made himself look. Dean was…smiling? Some soft expression on his face, at least. Stood over Sam for a few seconds and Sam couldn’t help notice the bulge in Dean’s jeans still. Wondered if—but Dean moved to the other bed. Laid down on his back and closed his eyes, arms crossed over his ribs.

Sam sat up. Pulled his jeans back into place and went to the open bottle on the table. Took a long swallow of it then brought it to Dean, who surprisingly shook his head.

“Pills’re fuckin’ me up.”

Oh, right.

Sam sat down. Not much light to see by, and Sam thought maybe Dean had fallen asleep. But no, he was just lying there, staring into the distance.

“D’you think there’s a way to really, actually, close up Hell?” Dean murmured after a minute.

Sam jolted, mind frantically scrambling to remember how much he’d told Dean about killing Lilith and taking over Hell, about Ruby’s assurance that Sam could do what Dean had just said. “Um.”

Dean shifted, rocked his head towards Sam. Chewed on the inside of his bottom lip before continuing. “Y’know, like, with the Gates. Can’t close ’em all, right?” Again echoing Ruby, and Sam tried not to freak out. “What if there was some way we could stop people from getting possessed. Like…like Meg. …What it did to her little sister. ’S fucked up, and—yeah.”

“Yeah,” Sam repeated. “M-maybe. We just don’t know what it is yet.”

Dean was watching him now, still biting his lip, and Sam stared back. He hadn’t had time to process what just happened. Why it happened. How Dean seemed to draw this violence out of him so easily. Had he raped Dean? That Ruby had to fight him off earlier too was nagging at him, but that was—that… Was it different? It wasn’t. They had offered something to Sam and he’d taken more than he should have. Neither seemed upset with him afterwards. Dean, except for moving in slow-mo, looked contented for once. And was talking about hunting. About helping the world when he’d wanted to give up on it just twenty minutes ago.

“If there was,” Sam hedged, “but there was a big sacrifice to be made, would you do it?”

Dean considered the question. Went to roll towards Sam but grunted when his bruised ribs stopped him. Pouted, let his eyes close and Sam thought maybe he wasn’t going to answer.

“Like dyin’?” Dean asked. Peeked an eye open. “Or being damned or somethin’?”

 _Exactly._ “Yeah, sure. Would you?”

Dean shrugged. “Depends.”

“On?”

Closed eyes again; a long, deep sigh. “What happens to _you_.”

A taste like a knife blade in Sam’s mouth. Like blood or cold tears. “What if we did it together?”

That barely-there smile from earlier returned. “Then yeah. I’d do it.”

“Even if it meant going to Hell?” Sam pushed, strangely eager to hear Dean say it, but his brother shook his head.

“Nah, Sam. I mean… I don’t want you to have’ta do somethin’ like that. I’d do it for you. Y’know that, right? I _would._ And I wouldn’t let you, if I could stop you.”

Sam’s heart was pounding. He reached for the whiskey again. “’Kay,” he said; lame. “What if I could—what if I _had_ to do something like that? Would you…do it with me?”

A shrug, and the pounding skipped a beat in Sam’s chest. But then, “Yeah. ’Course I would. Can’t let you do somethin’ all important on your own, can I? Gotta watch out for my kid brother. What is this, Truth or Dare?”

Sam forced a laugh. “No. Just…well, you brought it up.”

“Mm.”

“You falling asleep?”

“Mm,” again.

“Dean? I love you.”

Smile-into-a-smirk. “Then turn the heat on.”

The humming of the wall unit was decent white noise to cover up Sam messing around for the next few hours. He was tired too, but it was an ephemeral sensation hovering nearby, brushing up against him occasionally when he was still for too long, easily kept at bay if he was researching.

He looked up the drug Dean had taken. If he’d known the methadone was the less dangerous of the two, he’d have let Dean keep them. Sam was going to have to watch Dean more carefully when they went to anyone’s house.

He searched again for any info parallel to the book Ruby had shown him, but came up with nothing new. Nothing really close to it, either. Tried to find a reference or a picture of the knife she’d flashed earlier and finally got a hit with that. A demon-killing blade. Legends of them from the Kurds, which made sense as the Yazidis were some of the first people to claim contact with angels, and the lore was pretty clear that demons and angels didn’t get along. How Ruby might have obtained the thing was a mystery, but he’d ask her about it.

Sam scrounged up the list of names from Bobby and checked the online newspapers for stories and obits. Put a line through a couple of them. Definitely dead, probably from the Witnesses. Searched for oddball stories then, and was cross-referencing an earthquake map with reports of tremors in Chicago when Dean stopped breathing. Sam didn’t notice it right away, and it wasn’t until the heater clicked off, the room so warm now Sam was sweating, that the absolute silence registered.

“Dean!” Sam scrambled to him, stumbling in his haste. One hand on Dean’s chest, the other feeling for a pulse. Nothing from one, faint indication of the other. Sam shook him, smacked his face, then put his mouth over Dean’s and blew air into his lungs. Was ready to do it again when Dean wheezed, face screwing up like he was in pain, hands twisting into seizure-claws as he came back to life.

“Jesus fucking christ, Dean, you _asshole_!” Sam thumped his chest for good measure and Dean squawked, tried to jerk away, but Sam pinned him. Laid down next to him and wrapped around Dean, arms and legs. Wanted to keep bitching at him but found he could barely speak. Pushed on him until Dean was on his side, Sam behind him. Got his arms around Dean’s chest so he could keep a hand on his throat, feel him swallowing and taking in air and the blood rushing in him.

“H-hey, Sammy, w-what? What the fuck.”

“You weren’t _breathing_.”

“Oh. Huh. Sorry. Mm. Fuck. Was…was dreaming, I think.”

“What was it?” Sam asked automatically. Followed the curl of his brother’s body, tucked his face into his neck, lips stinging at the salt sweat there.

“R’membered, like…at first, when—when I was gone. Drugged up. Don’t…don’t really know what was goin’ on. Uh.” A laugh, and Sam knew that noise: Dean was ready to cry. Ducked his head down, trying—Sam lifted one of his hands, let Dean nuzzle into it, lips against Sam’s fingers. “Wake m’self up screamin’. People everywhere. Like…doin’ shit to me. Just, like, hurting me, or, or—didn’t seem any pattern to it, any reason. Couldn’t adjust to it. One second I was out, was nothin’, the next—like a centerpiece at a party or somethin’. And it was like… Later, there were… _professionals_ , y’know? But at first, these people…they weren’t. They were just doin’ _whatever_ to me.”

All of it was coming out weakly, as if Dean were reporting it while still in the dream. Was holding himself stiff, stressed and nervous but when Sam thought he might be making it worse and tried to let go, Dean shifted irritably, hunched his back against Sam’s chest.

“Someone always… Sometimes all I could do was hear them—around me, an’ knowin’ they’d touch me—skin crawled all the time.” He shivered, groaned a little with it. Swallowed hard several times like he was trying not to be sick.

It made sense on some level that Sam didn’t want to understand; the same voice that assured him Dean was probably clinically depressed on top of the PTSD, that he had survivor’s guilt and was reenacting his abuse to gain some sense of control, it also knew about these tactics: keeping a victim off balance, not giving them the ability to make sense of patterns or rules, training them through random brutality to submit and accept what was happening, proving to them that no one was going to help them, that there would be no mercy from strangers or captors, convincing them there was no rescue coming.

“I tried to fight, Sam.” And there were the tears. Sam’s hand was suddenly soaked, and Dean’s shallow breathing was hitching in his chest.

“I know,” Sam whispered. Of course Dean would fight, even though he probably shouldn’t have, that it probably made it worse for him.

Confirmation: “Tried to hurt anybody that got close to me. But…started taking things away from me. Hands and mouth, an’ then… My whole body. That was _worse_. Not feeling anything for, for d-days, I dunno, _weeks_ , maybe. Wrapped up, then they’d peel it all off just to hurt me again. Like sh-shocks—”

“Dean—”

“—whips and clamps and paddles, needles and cold, um. Then wrapped back up. No noise or touch, nothin’. Over ’n’ over. Th-then… Uh.” Dean sniffed, wiped his face against the bedspread and Sam wanted him to stop talking. Needed him to. It was horrible, hearing this, and Sam was getting hard again. He couldn’t help it. Pressed in so close like this to Dean was enough, but he couldn’t stop his mind’s eye from _seeing_. Dean stripped naked, drugged soft and confused; how he’d look to other people like that, how gorgeous he must have seemed. His skin spanked and pinched pink, striped from beatings. His body responding to unfamiliar touches, arching and straining and people had _fucked him_. Men had been inside him and Sam wondered if Dean had been a virgin that way before? If he’d had a dick in his mouth prior to being taken, if he’d known what to do or if he’d choked and gagged and hated it until he’d learned to do it right. He _had_ learned. Had been calm and submissive and done his best when Sam had his dick between his lips, down his throat.

“—Alastair,” Dean was saying, “only didn’t know his name for a l-long t-time. He fuckin’—he _made_ me—um. If I did—”

Sam couldn’t take anymore. “Shhh—”

He almost got his nose broken as Dean reacted to the noise like he was being shocked. Arched, flung his head back, tore at Sam’s hands, nails drawing blood and Sam heard Dean’s teeth snap and then Dean screamed. Thrashed and screamed and that’s definitely how his voice ended up destroyed.

“Holy shit! Dean! Dean, stop!” Sam didn’t let go, used his legs to twist up and over Dean, forced him almost face-down on the bed. He was hyperventilating, his body wound up so tight it was like holding onto stone. Then that analytical side of Sam prompted him to lean down and shush Dean again, right up against his ear. Another ragged scream, Dean’s head whipping away as much as possible, and okay, now Sam knew for sure that was the trigger.

He curled around Dean, holding onto his heaving, trembling brother, forced his forehead against Dean’s spine. “Hey. Dean? _Hey_! You’re _okay._ Dean. _Stop._ C’mon. Idiot, stop it. I’m right here, Dean.”

He kept talking, calmly, sternly, and after a few minutes, Dean started to relax. Dry sobs replaced the gasping. Coughing and moaning instead of screaming. He stopped scratching at Sam and burrowed cold fingers into Sam’s hands. He didn’t speak again before falling asleep, limp and quiet when it happened, his pulse pounding, but breathing in a normal rhythm.


	17. Chapter 17

 

Dean still wasn’t talking the next morning. Sam just let him be for most of the day, the little blood blister just on the inside of Dean’s bottom lip he kept tonguing over keeping Sam from demanding anything else of him. Dean nodded, shook his head, shrugged. Moved when and where Sam pointed, but he did it all at a funereal pace.

They’d woken up together—rather, Dean had surfaced with Sam still wrapped around him, but Sam had kept vigil over Dean. Had started to pray for him but found it easier to just…feel him. Alive and sweating, shifting around, sighing. Moaning softly through closed lips. And when his eyes finally opened and he’d rolled his shoulders and stretched his legs out, Sam only laid there. He let Dean set the tone, and took it as everything was okay when Dean looked over his shoulder at him, smiled fleetingly, then slipped out from under Sam’s arm and into the bathroom.

But he wouldn’t say anything.

Wouldn’t eat.

Dean sat morosely until Sam instructed him to pack his things. Stood by the car staring into the distance, got in when Sam opened the door for him. Turned his face to the window and said nothing when Sam offered to buy him coffee, a milkshake, pie. When his phone rang, he handed it to Sam.

It took them most of the daylight hours to get to Kansas City, but it was still early enough for Sam to track down and talk to the Mormon parents of six children (three sets of identical twins) who were in the hospital, bleeding from their eyes and singing (even while sedated) in ancient Akkadian.

Dean stayed in the car.

“Even if you _were_ talking, the nose ring wouldn’t let you pass for FBI or CDC,” Sam said, wriggling into badly creased slacks in the visitor parking garage across from the hospital.

Dean shrugged.

The normalcy of the parents and gathered family was glaring and uncomfortable. Fingertips wet with holy water and muttered incantations proved well enough that demons weren’t directly present. Sam asked about allergies, learned there were none, and besides they didn’t have pets at home. He couldn’t get close to the children, his ‘colleagues’ already in the isolation room.

Dean was right where Sam had left him like he was fucking frozen in place.

They drove to the family’s house to check for hex bags or altars or any kind of evidence that this wasn’t what Bobby thought it was, and Dean surprised Sam when he moved to join him in the search.

“You sure, Dean? You don’t have to.”

A glacial nod. Sam calculated: it was now thirty hours since Dean had last eaten anything.

The house was just as creepy-normal as the family it sheltered. They split up, Sam taking the stairs to conserve Dean’s energy. Kids’ rooms in blue and pink and green. Uncomfortable lace pillows in the parent’s room. No altars, though plenty of pictures of saints, tactless placements of plastic fruit and hollow books, and everything was tan, or a shade of.

He could hear Dean rustling around downstairs but lost track of his movements in the couple of half-baths as he flicked on fans to make sure nothing was tucked up in the vents. Satisfied but unhappy that this was looking more and more like a Seal breaking rather than a possession or a curse, Sam trotted back to the ground floor. He circled around through the entryway and then into the kitchen, gave a once-over to the mudroom Dean might have missed because the doorway was in a small pantry, then went to collect his brother.

Dean was standing in the middle of the plushly carpeted, fake-country accented living room, hands over his face, silently crying. Sam said his name, saw Dean shrink in on himself at the sound. Got up close to him and could hear the breathless sobbing that was shaking Dean’s body.

On the coffee table by Dean’s right leg was a pile of mail. The envelope on top was addressed to the family from someone with the same last name, probably a grandmother from the neat cursive, Sam guessed, with a return address of Lawrence, Kansas.

“C’mon,” Sam whispered. Put his fingertips to the back of Dean’s arm, grateful when Dean allowed himself to be led like a blind man out of the house, away from the memory of one more thing taken away from him, done to him in violence.

The rain and cold wind seemed to wake him up some, got him to wipe a hand over his wet face and take a deep breath through his teeth. He glanced up with tired, colourless eyes when Sam opened the Impala for him, and all Sam wanted to do right then was take him to a motel, get him in bed and sleep right next to him until they’d caught up on every lost second. Shut out the world, forget about demons and fallen angels, Hell and brothels and torture. Sam didn’t care about anyone else, sitting in their car with his brother. Didn’t want anything but Dean. Wished then prayed for somewhere they could go where it would be just the two of them, forever, where there would never be jealousy or fear or isolation between them.

When Sam’s phone buzzed, he thought about throwing it out the window. What he did instead was drive to the nearest motel, check in under the name Graham Edge, push Dean down on one of the beds, supply him with a bottle of water and a small arsenal, then floor it to a nearby home and garden supply store. Made it inside and out with raw sunflower seeds and a couple dried herbs not on-hand as the ready-to-close-up employees glared at him with friendly smiles, then raced back to the hospital. In the parking lot, he mashed up the ingredients with frankincense resin from the trunk into an edible paste. Rolled six dime-sized balls between his palms, then made his way back to the rooms of the bleeding, singing children.

He lucked out entirely: they’d separated the children into two separate rooms. The first was unguarded and he slipped in and tucked a little cookie inside the cheek of each boy, where the chanting would chew it up naturally. There were family members in the second room with the girls, but Sam just barged in and used his size and newfound disregard to get between the adults and the children and before anyone could stop him, popped the cure into the children’s mouths. As he hurried from the ward, he could hear at least one of the boys coughing behind him.

 _It worked_ , he texted Bobby.

 _Good for them, still bad for us_ , was the reply. Another Seal opened.

Sam didn’t care. Dean was right: if there was the Devil, then God was out there, too, and Sam had always believed God had a plan for humanity. That suffering wasn’t needless or unwarranted. That people weren’t given more than they were able to handle. So what if he just…stopped? Helping Ruby, fighting evil, trying to save everyone? He had faith in God. Maybe he and Dean could have some peace if he just let all this go, let it sort itself out.

Calm for the first time in, like, _a year_ , Sam walked into an empty motel room.

No sign of struggle. No answer, no return text. Bobby hadn’t heard from Dean.

Turning on the GPS in Dean’s phone was something that only ever occurred to Sam when he wished he’d already done it.

Dean had taken his gun and one of the knives. Maybe he was just out getting food?

When his phone vibrated in his clenched fist, Sam didn’t even look at the screen before answering. Somehow he knew who it would be.

“Hey, Sam. I made something for you,” Ruby said.

Unable to keep the tension from his voice, he gritted, “Yeah? Great. What?”

“Boy, who pissed in your Cheerios?” An exaggerated sigh. “Wait, lemme guess. Where’s Waldo, starring Dean Winchester?”

Stress turned to begging so fast Sam shuddered in disgust even as he spoke. “You found him before, Ruby. _Please._ I can’t fucking—”

“Wait, Sam. Listen. I was right about Lilith. She’s caught your scent. I gotta get to you ASAP. I made some cloaking devices for you—the both of you, but you need them _now_.”

“ _I don’t care._ Just find Dean, or fuck off. Get out of my life. Find someone else to do your dirty work, that will go to Hell for you.”

“Sam—”

“What? What _the fuck_!” Sam was pacing, not knowing when he’d stood up, only that he felt caged in, _trapped_. Helpless, and somehow Ruby being the only one with a hand out to him just made it worse. It was like crawling up a rope on fire. He just wanted his brother, wanted to be left alone with him. It was what Dean needed, anyway. Distance from all this bullshit.

Ruby wasn’t having it. “You can’t quit now. Fine. I’ll track down your lost puppy, but you’re not getting out of this. You made a _deal_ , remember? And it seems to me we keep reinforcing it with these little side quests. When I find him this time, put a fucking bell on him.”

The phone went dead in his ear.

He drove around Kansas City for the next hour. Circled downtown, cruised past bars and nightclubs, paid cover charges for a two-minute walk-through several times. No luck. Texted Ruby. No answer. Tried again: _Im sorry_

_Ya you are_

He pulled into the motel parking lot. Sat in car. Thumbed: _Im scared. Paranoid. If I lose him again I wont get him back_

He could picture her face softening, that sort of perplexed compassion around her eyes.

_Going to have to let him go to do this thing tho_

_Havent said im going to_

_U have to. Only one who can_

He picked up when she called. “Where are you?”

“You just stay put. I’ll make sure he gets home. I should be getting paid for this shit, y’know.”

“I’m sorry,” he repeated. “Thank you.”

“Yeah. It’s like I said before, Sam. You’re the one. It’s because of who you are that you can do this. Take Lilith out and lock down Hell. You won’t do what she’ll do, or what anyone else down there will do.”

“What do you mean?”

“Open the rest of the Seals. Let Lucifer out. I told you, Sam. You’re _good._ ”

“But I’ll be a demon.”

She sighed into the phone. He could hear people laughing in the background of wherever she was. “It's not like you’re going to become one the same way everyone else does. It’s mostly weak, stupid, greedy people that end up with black eyes. Even me. I wanted power. I wanted to save myself. I was selfish. But I was _scared._ And very young. I realised it wasn’t right what I was doing, real quick, but it was too late. And…being a demon is like a magnifying glass. It just intensifies who the person already is, you know? And you, Sam, you’re sweet and strong and brave, and you’ll be a demon but you’ll be _yourself._ ”

Mute, Sam just stared at the flickering neon sign, the 6 blinking in clusters of three.

“And I’ll be by your side, remember? You’re what this world needs, Sammy. You can _save it._ Don’t give up now, huh?”

“Yeah,” he breathed. “Okay.”

“Okay.” He could hear the smile in her voice, and it was soft and comforting. “Hey, leave the car unlocked for me and there’ll be a present for you two under the front seat. Special ‘these are not the droids you’re looking for’ hex bags. Tell Dean you made them, whatever, but they’ll hide you from Lilith and her crew as long as they’re not right up your ass.”

“Dean—”

“Yeah, you’re gonna wanna make sure he brushes his teeth when he gets there, but he’s comin’ back. I gotta go. See you soon, baby.”

Sam left the driver’s side door unlocked for her and retreated into the motel. He tried to keep himself busy but found he couldn’t focus on anything. His hands were clumsy with the whetstone, missed keystrokes on the computer. Television was asinine and over-dramatic. He finally kicked off his shoes and stretched out on a bed. Didn’t mean to doze but he hadn’t slept for longer than Dean had been starving himself.

The faint scent of sulphur woke him up. Had him reaching for the gun under his pillow, alarmed not only that there could be a demon close to him, but that it might be Ruby. That Dean would catch her in here with him.

Sulphur, pot smoke, Dean’s failing deodorant. Sam blinked and squinted in the darkness, loosening his hand on the pistol. Reached out his other hand and felt clothing that hadn’t been there earlier. Raised up on one elbow and saw the shadow of his brother stripped naked and slinking towards the bathroom. The light didn’t come on, but the shower started. Sam pushed the dirty clothes off his bed and laid back down.

Ten minutes, maybe a little less. Could still smell the stale smoke from the clothing, but Dean was all motel soap and toothpaste when he crawled onto the bed and under the covers with Sam. Damp, naked, warm, he wiggled in close, fit himself up against Sam’s chest and belly, pushed heels against Sam’s shins until their legs were bent together. Grabbed behind him until Sam gave him his arm to drape over his ribs.

“Why do you keep leaving?” Sam asked, putting his cheek to Dean’s towel-fluffed hair. “Why don’t you just wait for me? Tell me where you’re going? I’ll go with you. I don’t even care, Dean.” That was a lie, but in that moment it felt true. “I can’t deal with you disappearing.”

Dean should have said he was sorry. That he wouldn’t do it again. Even just ‘okay, Sammy.’ But Sam got nothing from him. Dean sniffed, swallowed hard, shifted his head away some, sniffed again, clearing his sinuses.

“Coke?”

Dean shook his head.

“Pills?” No again. “Fuck, Dean. Meth?” What else was there? “Heroin?”

A little sigh and Dean brought Sam’s hand up, his own curled around it, and held it against his heart. It was beating so much slower than Sam’s own now. He wanted to reach into Dean’s body and touch it. Wring it clean of the drugs in his system. Didn’t realise that he was digging his fingers into Dean’s chest until Dean gasped.

Sam liked that. It was _something_ at least. Some kind of response to his existence, which was all he’d _ever_ really wanted from his brother. Not that Dean didn’t give that to him… Sam could just admit right here, in the dark, angry and afraid, that he _always_ wanted it. All the time, no matter what. Needed Dean’s validation and attention and just _him._

He hated that he needed it. It was frustrating to always be looking to Dean for a reaction. Wanting to know if Dean was proud of him, amused by his actions. Irritated enough to debate rationally or if he was just gonna tease him good-naturedly. Whatever it was, Sam thrived on it.

And now he was having to hurt him to get anything from him. He didn’t want to. He _liked_ it. He was hard, and Dean was reaching back again, trying to get his hand on the cock jammed up against his ass. Sam wanted to make Dean scream. Hear him beg. Have him make promises and beat him when he even thought about breaking them.

But those were just ideas _._ Flashes of want and desire, and in the daylight Sam would be ashamed of the same thoughts. Wouldn’t he? They weren’t just ‘fucking around’ like he’d said. Dean was damaged and Sam was making it worse. _Wanted_ to make it worse. It… Sam wanted _Dean_ , however he could have him.

Put a bell on him, Ruby said.

But she’d also told him to distance himself, that Dean needed to figure out how to be on his own.

Sam felt like he was being ripped in half, right down the middle. And Dean was rubbing over his cock through his jeans.

He shoved Dean out of the bed. Felt him land on his knees hard enough the lamp rattled next to them. Dean grunted with the impact, but then he was up and pawing across the bed, searching for Sam.

Scooting out of Dean’s reach, Sam clicked the other lamp on and stood, putting the bed between them.

His brother was high and depressed and the last thing Sam should do was hurt him.

Dean looked like he was in pain already. Brow furrowed, lips drawn away from his teeth, he was taking quick, shallow breaths, panting almost. Lashes fluttering over twitching eyes, he squinted at Sam, a beckoning hand stretched out. His first words in twenty-four hours were a hoarse plea: “Sammy. Don’t push me away. I need you.”

“Need me to what, Dean? Sit here and watch you waste away? Get fucked up on drugs? How’d you get them, anyway?”

Dean frowned. The _way_ he frowned, how he dropped his hand to the bed, buried his face in the crook of his arm and sighed deep, ragged, told Sam the same story he’d been trying to ignore since Ruby’s comment about Dean brushing his teeth. The fingertip bruises on Dean’s neck and shoulder said something similar.

“ _How_ , Dean? Tell me you didn’t blow some dirty pinhead in the men’s room for free drugs.” _And tell me who, and where, so I can gut him._

Dean turned his face to the side, one dull eye showing the sad truth before he admitted it. “Wasn’t dirty. Dealer, not a junkie.”

Sam put a hand over his mouth to hide the snarl contorting his face. When he could, he asked, “Why?” muffled and torn through clenched teeth.

Dean flicked his hand tiredly. Another worked-for breath and fuck, he looked so…so fucking _young_ slumped against the bed like that. Like the little boy he’d never really been. Vulnerable and sleepy, pale-lipped, limp and tousled. The bruises ruined the illusion by placement alone, and that goddamned nose ring—Sam decided firmly that he hated it. “Too tired to start a fight, I guess?”

“A fight? I don’t—I don’t fucking get you, Dean. Are you trying to _hide_ from pain or do you _want_ it?”

“Both?” A brittle laugh, then Dean smeared his face against his arm and Sam almost didn’t hear him say, “Want _you_.”

He couldn’t help it. Or stop himself. Made Dean cry out, startled, when Sam lunged forward and dragged him by one arm back onto the bed. Wrestled him down (not that he was struggling) and hugged Dean to him, chest to back. Crushed him, really, until Dean wheezed. Sam closed his eyes and put his hand over those fresh bruises. Dug into them to hear another gasp. Got a handful of muscle and twisted. Tangled his fingers in Dean’s hair, threw a leg over him, then used his free hand to pinch, scratch, to wrench and tug fistfuls of skin and muscles. Drew blood on the back of Dean’s thighs with his nails. Squeezed his ass cheek hard enough to leave his own bruise. Left a sore trail down Dean’s ribs, and Dean started crying. Jerked against Sam’s hold as if he wanted to escape, but proved otherwise when he gripped the edge of the bed. Held still as Sam hurt him, quiet except when he couldn’t be, when the pain made him squeal.

Pain. How could Dean _want_ this?

Sam faltered, found he was shaking, and Dean gave a frustrated growl and flipped around, pulled on Sam’s hands, trying to open them on his body again.

“I’ll beg you if you want.” Dean was still strong; held his wrists, and they were too tangled up, too close, for Sam to fight him off.

“Dean, don’t—just don’t. I _can’t_.” Couldn’t lie and say _I don’t want to_ , but: “I don’t know how, anyway!”

“I can show you,” Dean said, and Sam was sickened and aroused at the eagerness he heard. “You’re good already. I’ll make it good. I’ll _be_ good. You wanna fuck me—”

“ _No_.” He had to say it.

“You _do_ ,” Dean insisted. “It’s okay. I want you to. No one else. Ever. Just you. Me and you, Sammy.”

As he spoke, Dean twisted his hands and their positions reversed—Sam’s fingers around Dean’s wrists, and Sam tightened his grip without thinking. Dean looked down between them, cocked his head, watching. Thick lashes lowered, his candy-heart of a mouth wet, his cheek flushed and freckled like the bridge of his nose, the shell of his ear, and suddenly Sam’s nose was buried there, his lips pressed to the sharp edge of Dean’s jaw.

Dean sighed and rolled his wrists in Sam’s hands. “Just you,” he repeated, tilting his head away only to offer more of his neck.

He tasted like dry grass on Sam’s tongue. Like summer, and lightning in the air.

“What do I do?” Sam asked.

Dean’s voice gusted over his ear, throat rattling under his lips like a furnace coming to life. “Hurt me, Sam.”

 _Sam_ hurt. His blood boiled in his veins: molten, it rushed through his body, scalding behind his eyes, burning his ears. Tightened his throat, filled his cock. A choked-off noise erupted from his mouth as his mind protested what his body was already doing. It was muffled in Dean’s hair as he scraped his teeth against Dean’s skull, along his hairline. Not biting, just digging in, dragging, and Dean let out a long sigh even as he twitched in Sam’s arms.

Sam loved Dean, and loved the feel of his body against his own, the taste of his sweat on his tongue, loved _having_ him, and he wanted to keep him.

He moved his lips lower, to Dean’s shoulder, and this time he did bite. Hard. His teeth popped through skin and into the muscle there, and he tasted blood. Sucked it into his mouth and swallowed, wanted it to do to him what the other blood he’d been drinking would do, but it was only human. Just human, but it was _Dean’s_. Proof that he was alive and this close and Sam shut his mind down around the wanting, the wondering, the what if. What if it was Dean and _more_?

There was something there, a splinter working its way deeper into his brain. He knew it would fester soon, that he’d have dig it out or let it poison him.

Dean’s hand came up as if to push him away, but didn’t. Trembling fingers found his face, near his mouth, and Sam bit those, too. He nipped fingers and Dean’s neck and his jaw and cheek, his lips, and Dean was shaking, making yips of pain, but never a move to stop him.

Sam rolled him over. One hand to Dean’s spine, he rested all his weight there. Leaned over him. “Put your hands behind you,” he said, reaching down to Dean’s discarded clothing on the floor next to the bed.

Dean complied and Sam lashed his leather belt around Dean’s wrists then tugged his own belt free. Slipping the leather through the buckle, he looped the noose over Dean’s head, around his neck, and pulled it tight. A gasp opened Dean’s mouth and Sam twisted the leather through his teeth and around his face, wound the belt around itself in the back so he had a sort of handle. His knee still holding Dean in place, he pulled up, stretching his brother’s mouth cruelly. Dean struggled then, thrashing, as Sam wrenched his head back.

“This what you want, huh? Fucking hold still,” he gritted as he stood. His pants joined Dean’s pile, and he added the rest of his clothes before hauling Dean off the bed by the makeshift halter. Kept him on his knees, teetering until he spread his legs wide for balance.

Sam had never been this hard. Not even the first time he’d fucked Jessica, had her wet and begging him to put his big fat perfect thick cock in her tight virgin pussy, even when she’d _said_ those words, and she had screamed into his shoulder when he did, had called him daddy and bounced in his lap, her thighs streaked with her come and blood and he had thought nothing could be as hot as that.

He was so, so wrong.

Dean wiped that from the top of his list with a stretch of his jaw when he opened his mouth wider as Sam rubbed his cock over his lips. He could feel the veins pulsing under skin stretched thin. It seemed to take twice as long to get his fist from base to tip, or maybe he was going slower than usual, savouring this when just a minute before he’d been denying it.

“This is what you want,” he said again, less of a question this time. He could see it was in the way Dean’s eyes were fixed on his face, how his body was loose and comfortable, leaning on Sam, against his leg. Dean nodded. Sam snatched Dean’s throat, squeezed, bending him backwards. The belt might be tearing his mouth by the noise he made.

“You know what I want? Do you?” he growled, shaking his brother for emphasis. His answer was a gurgle and a whine, Dean’s eyes threatening to shut. “I want you to _fucking listen to me_. You don’t sneak off and get high. No sucking dick for dope. You’re not a fucking whore, Dean. I’ll take care of you if you just _let me_. You want this from me, you give me that. You’re _mine._ I told you that already. So you answer my fucking questions, you do what I tell you, and you don’t leave me, ever again.”

Dean was breathing hard, panting wetly through the leather, straining to be still though Sam knew it hurt, the way he was holding him, but he didn’t struggle, didn’t try to deny Sam. Instead, Sam felt the gentlest pressure as Dean leaned more into his hand.

“Okay.” The word barely was one, mostly just a click in Sam’s throat and mostly to himself, anyway. He was sealing the deal Dean had been selling him for a long time now. His word, this weak ‘okay’ was his signature, but he needed something else. He needed to _see_.

He slapped Dean. Not a love tap—hard enough Dean would have hit the ground had Sam not been holding onto the belt. He hit him again before Dean could regain his composure, hit him so he _wouldn’t_. So he’d know better. Another slap for emphasis, and Dean let out a pained, surprised cry at the fourth strike. He frowned at Sam, his nose bleeding. He would have a black eye later and Sam felt the faintest of tremors running through Dean, but he had what he wanted.

He wouldn’t have known it _was_ what he wanted if he’d been asked an hour ago, but Sam Winchester was half-instinct by trade. By birth, and honed by Dean, and instinct was telling him now that his older brother had heard everything he’d just said and would comply. Could tell by the weight of Dean’s head, the way he searched Sam’s face but did not flinch at his raised hand—and then how he looked away when Sam slapped him again. As if he couldn’t control it, his gaze slid, rested on the far wall for a moment, and then snapped back up to Sam’s face as soon as he could force it to through the pain.

Sam’s hand was buzzing as he put it to his cock, spread his legs and pulled Dean up between them. Dean was weeping, blood still trickling from his nose, over his lips and teeth, painting them rose red, staining the belt he was biting into, and Sam pushed the head of his cock there, dipped it into the blood and tears and saliva. Gripped himself and shoved at Dean’s mouth, tried to fit into it even though the belt was holding his lips too tight. He tried anyway, pushed against Dean’s teeth and stroked himself, knocking his fist into soft lips over and over again, and other than noises he couldn’t seem to help making, Dean let him do it. Let him bruise his face and split his lip and blacken his eye, let Sam keep him on his knees, practically an animal on a short leash, and Sam was gonna come, hand hot velvet on his cock, Dean hard and obedient between his thighs.

He yanked Dean forward, shoved his dick against his cheek as his orgasm hit him so hard the hand holding onto Dean’s halter curled into a fist.

Dean screamed at the pull on his mouth even as Sam spit come up his face, painted his cheek, the bridge of his nose, narrowly missed his eyes. Some of it slid down his other cheek. Sam smeared himself back to Dean’s mouth, mixing semen into the blood, gasping for breath while he watched it run down Dean’s chin, a candy cane mess. Dean was trying to lick at it, sucking on the leather and flicking his tongue uselessly against it, his wet eyes pleading at Sam.

He was reeling, and the realisation of what he’d just done to Dean was like ice down his back. He’d tried so hard to take care of Dean up to this point, and now he’d ruined it all. Dean was hurt, was right back where Sam’d found him, bound and on his knees, abused.

“Oh god,” he groaned. Reached down and jerked the leather belt free of Dean’s head. It came away with a wet slurp, and Sam dropped it hastily and stumbled back into a chair that creaked under his weight as he collapsed. He couldn’t, wouldn’t, look at Dean, put his face into his hands instead.

For a moment nothing happened, and Sam couldn’t hear anything over his own blood rushing in his ears, and that was how Dean managed to get so close. Otherwise Sam might have pushed him away, told him to stay where he was until he could figure out how much he’d just fucked everything up. But suddenly Dean was nudging his way into Sam’s lap, having shuffled on his knees across the room, his hands still bound behind him. He pushed, smearing Sam’s arms with blood and come and tears, until Sam had to lean back, his hands up, unwilling to touch Dean. Not knowing _how_ to touch him, so he couldn’t stop him from nuzzling, from pressing his lips against his inner thigh, his belly just above his cock. Dean touched it, too, kissed it, rose petal lips on him, and Sam hissed, sensitive. Mesmerised.

Dean was looking up, eyes flickering like marsh lights. He bowed his back, scooted in close enough to rub himself against Sam’s shin and he made a noise Sam could just hear. A needy whimper, a puppy begging to be petted.

“No,” Sam heard, and how the hell was he even talking? There was no rational thought in his head whatsoever, and yet, “Do it yourself.”

He straightened out his leg some, giving Dean more to lean over, to rut against. He brought his hand down, but not to touch Dean, not yet. He pushed his dick against Dean’s lips, a practiced movement that milked the dregs of his balls onto Dean’s cheek, then his tongue as his brother jerked back to taste it. And then he was in Dean’s mouth, too easy, too perfect a fit, and Dean was humping against his leg, eyes closed in concentration.

Sam could feel the long, hard length of him against his shin, and it wasn’t all that pleasant, the force Dean was using close to bruising Sam’s leg. It probably didn’t feel much better for Dean. Hot and rough, not enough of the right kind of friction, but Sam didn’t care. Dean’s breathing was loud, his nose half-plugged with blood, and his ribs heaved under Sam’s palms. Still so thin, and when had he put his hands on him?

He leaned forward, tugging on Dean’s wrists, knowing the angle had to hurt. Sam traced those hated scars with his blunt nails, digging in, leaving his own angry red marks. Once more, and then he cupped the back of Dean’s head and held him still, buried in his throat, and scratched up his spine with his other hand. That did it, and Sam needed it done, was losing his mind with his brother grinding on his leg and swallowing his cock, and he could smell Dean’s blood and his sweat and then his come as he shuddered under Sam’s nails, hips stuttering and rolling.

There was a pitiful choke and Sam let go, jerked away as if Dean could be tricked into thinking he hadn’t been touching him in the first place. His cock slipped free of Dean’s mouth, wet and fat and he might have come again if he’d hated himself less.

Dean collapsed against him, forehead on Sam’s thigh and Sam’s first rational thought was to dread what was going to be in Dean’s eyes when he finally lifted his head. Disappointment. Disgust. And why not? Sam hadn’t known what he was doing, and shouldn’t have done it at all. Dean would be ashamed of him, and it was ludicrous to think he would obey Sam. Now that the moment was over, Dean would know this was not what he wanted. Sam closed his eyes and willed his heart to stop beating.

A deep breath, a strong sigh against his skin, and Dean left Sam’s lap, sat back on his heels. “Gross.”

Sam’s eyes opened and fucking christ, Dean was beautiful. The belt had left lines on his cheeks, and his lips and chin were wet still. A bruise like gothic eyeshadow was darkening his left eye, and he had the sweetest frown pulling at his bloodied mouth as he looked down at himself, at the come slicking his half-hard dick, globbed against his belly. He pouted and Sam barked a short, relieved laugh. Dean craned his head back to look when Sam stood, but didn’t move. Not until Sam pulled him to his feet and spun him around to untie his wrists, then Sam ushered him into the bathroom.

Sam helped him shower, wiped down Dean’s face with something akin to reverence. Put an arm around his waist from behind and rubbed the little square of motel soap over his chest and belly, his genitals. Scratched lightly at the come in Dean’s short pubic hair before running both soapy hands over his clawed back.

Clean and dry, Sam watched as Dean stumbled back into the rumpled bed. Stood over him, one hand angled towards the lamp but unable to turn it off. Dean was so thin, bruised, bitten, split. There would be blood on the pillow in the morning and Sam felt tears threaten the corners of his eyes.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Dean groused.

Sam cleared his throat. “Like what?” But he knew exactly what—like Dean was a fucking miracle. Like a fatal car accident: still smoking, pieces falling off. Like Sam was witnessing something he shouldn’t, but couldn’t look away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [LOOK AT THIS](http://silver9mm.tumblr.com/post/159319674530)


	18. Chapter 18

Sam was right about the blood in the bed once morning came. He flipped back the covers when Dean went into the bathroom and there was a Turin-shroud of rust smears not only on the pillow but lower, shoulder-width and down where Sam had clawed his legs. Sam covered it back up, conserved Dean’s fading body heat, spread himself over it as if it were still his brother under him. Pushed his face into Dean’s pillow and could taste the blood in the air, Dean’s nightmare sweat and drool and something sour that the heroin had done to him.

If Sam had thought all their problems would be solved by what happened, he would have been sorely mistaken, so it was a good thing he woke up anxious about Dean’s state of mind, his health, his memory. That way, it seemed right on track when Dean refused food.

He was drinking water, so there was that, but Dean wasn’t designed to go without eating. He’d always been the first to get cranky with low blood sugar, and while he wasn’t being peevish, he also still wasn’t talking much either and stumbling over words when he did. When Sam caught him just sitting on the edge of the bed, eyes closed, swaying like he was almost asleep, because he could now, Sam snapped his fingers a couple of times. When Dean looked at him, he said, “Lie down.” When Dean did: “Stay there.”

The trunk of the car needed reorganising. It was generally a little messy, but Sam had dug through it harshly the night before looking for frankincense, and really, it had needed Dean’s touch for months. He had a system and Sam had only vaguely tried to stick to it, subconsciously wanting Dean to come back and fix it himself. One thing Dean would have tossed out was the collection of crumpled grocery bags wedged off to one side. Sam rummaged through them, eventually finding the box of instant oatmeal packets he’d bought last summer.

Dean watched him suspiciously as he ran the small coffee pot without grounds and used the hot water to reconstitute the oatmeal in a coffee mug. It was plain, but the others in the variety pack had things like nuts and apple chunks Dean probably wouldn’t chew.

“Here,” he said, offering the cup and a plastic spoon to Dean.

Dean shook his head. Stayed on his back.

“Eat the fucking food, Dean.”

“I don’t want it.”

“I don’t care. I’m telling you to eat it, so eat it. Sit up.”

Dean scooted so he was against the headboard, but he only glared at Sam when he extended the oatmeal to him again.

“Really? What the fuck.” Sam slammed the cup down on the nightstand and scanned the room for Dean’s belt. Warmth seeped down through him as he debated for a few moments on whether he should just hit Dean with it or—

Dean maintained his scowling eye contact until Sam bent him forward. Resisted weakly when Sam pulled his wrists behind his back and knotted the belt around them. Sam pushed him upright then straddled his legs. They stared at each other for a minute while Sam tried to figure this out.

“Why won’t you eat?” he finally asked.

Dean shrugged. Sam reached out and pinched his nipple hard enough Dean yelped.

“Tell me why.”

Dean grunted irritably and shifted his hips, but Sam wasn’t going anywhere.

“They starved you, right? This is a control thing.”

Blank stare, rapid half-blinks.

“Yeah. Okay, well, it stops now. Do I have to feed it to you?”

Dean huffed and rolled his eyes, then turned his face away when Sam picked up the mug.

“I’m serious, Dean. Open your fucking mouth.” Sam held a spoonful near Dean’s cheek, poked him with it when Dean didn’t move. He flinched away at the touch, a smear of it on his skin. “I fed you before, you know. Remember? In the bathtub? You were licking it off my fingers.”

Dean twitched back towards him at that, side-eyeing him curiously.

“Would you rather me do it that way again?”

Sam didn’t wait for an answer. Chucked the spoon into the trash next to the bed and dipped his fingers in the warm oats and scooped out a glob. Grabbed Dean’s chin with his other hand. “Open.”

Slowly, he did, looking at Sam rather than the food. Sam pushed the oatmeal between Dean’s lips, used his upper teeth to scrape it off onto his tongue, and then Dean bit him. Not hard, but enough Sam gasped and jerked his fingers free and then lurched back when Dean spit the mouthful at him, splattering their legs with it.

Sam slapped his face. There wasn’t enough room between them to hit hard, but Dean’s head still banged against the headboard. Sam latched both hands around his throat and squeezed. He knew how to knock someone out like this, exactly where to apply pressure, and Dean knew it too. He looked scared for about three seconds before his face went slack, although behind Sam’s butt his feet kicked several times, then went still. Sam held him there, right at the edge of unconsciousness, Dean’s face getting redder, and when he finally let go, Dean didn’t move. Not at first. A few heartbeats, then the trembling started. Sam could feel the muscles in Dean’s belly contracting over and over again. Green eyes rolled up. His chest heaved, but he wasn’t breathing, so Sam slapped him again. Cupped Dean’s cheek in one hand and hit his other until it was pink, and finally, Dean gasped and the spasming ceased. He drooped, let Sam hold him up, drawing in uneven gulps of air.

“Hey, look at me,” Sam growled and shook him. Dean’s eyes met his, watery and spacey. “Don’t fucking bite me ever again.”

Dean winced, then managed a sly look. “Is that an order?” he rasped. Tried to flinch back when Sam banged a loose fist against his mouth.

“Yeah, Dean, it is. Don’t do it.”

A curt little nod, but then, weirdly, Dean laughed. He’d been doing that a lot recently. A contrite chuckle as he tried to wipe his chin on his shoulder but couldn’t reach. Sam frowned at him, then settled down harder in Dean’s lap.

“Did they catch you at a bar? Or a restaurant or something? Is that why you don’t like to go anymore?”

The amusement on Dean’s face vanished. He shrugged slightly, tongue flicking out, still trying to clean himself.

“Dean.”

He growled in response; another shrug, showed Sam his teeth again when Sam put a hand to his forehead and made him look up. “I don’t—yeah, maybe? I think so, okay? I don’t really remember, but it’s like—I can’t help it.”

Sam let him go and Dean ducked his head. “Thank you. I get it. I’m right there with you, though, you know? You don’t gotta worry as long as you don’t take off by yourself. It doesn’t make sense—”

“It does,” Dean interjected.

“—what? It does?”

Dean nodded and squinted up at him. “Bein’ random. If I told you where I was going they—someone might hear me. Phone tap, or, or read a note, or whatever. So I just go. Someplace no one would think to look. _You_ can’t find me. Hopefully, no one else can.”

 _Ruby can_. “Alright, well, you’re not doing that anymore, either.”

The squint turned back into a glare, but Sam didn’t miss the worry there.

“You’re _not_ ,” Sam stated firmly. “You want drugs, I’ll get them for you. I’ll keep them and you have to fucking ask for them. If you take off again, I _will_ cuff you to the toilet. C’mon,” he said. Swung off Dean and pulled him to his feet. “Shower.”

He left Dean’s wrists tied behind him, and Dean didn’t ask to be released. His belt was going to end up ruined if they did this too many times. As Sam adjusted the water and stripped them both of what little clothes they’d gotten into this morning, he realised they needed actual bondage gear. They had rope and chains and such on hand, but Sam wasn’t going to use what they tied down demons and monsters with on his brother, and he could get out of regular handcuffs too easily.

Dean bitched about getting soap in his eye and Sam tickling him as he was washed, but he went silent when Sam started down his back. Thumbs following the curve of his spine, a gentle massage, Sam stood behind him and watched the water run over the swell of Dean’s ass. Cupped his hands under the muscles and lifted. Pulled them apart slightly, gently so Dean wouldn’t be forced forward.

“Dean?”

It wasn’t really a question, and they both knew it. Dean turned his head, couldn’t (wouldn’t?) quite look at Sam over his shoulder, but it was permission enough.

 _‘You wanna fuck me—’_ Sam had denied it. Of course he had. After everything they’d already done, somehow that still seemed like the one thing they couldn’t back away from, could never ever pretend hadn’t happened.

Dean put his face into the water for the few moments it took Sam to get his hands soapy. Kept his eyes closed this time when Sam touched him again. His hands were in fists just above where Sam was skimming slippery fingers between Dean’s cheeks.

“Just gonna clean—” Sam mumbled, his heart hammering in his chest as he touched Dean’s hole for the first time without a washcloth or brotherly modesty between them. Two fingers brushed over it, then away, lower, pressed hard up into Dean’s taint. Got a burst of breath for that, cut short when his fingertips found it again. Curled experimentally, felt that slight give he wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with, and Dean’s own fingers stretched out, danced around Sam’s wrist as he shifted to trace around it, and then push into it. Just the tip of his left thumb first, but then Dean snagged his wrist, encouraging, so Sam added the other thumb. Heat, Dean’s pulse; soft, slick inside and Dean’s breathing tripped when Sam suddenly wrapped his arms around him, careful of the bruise Meg had left on his ribs.

Sam didn’t say anything. Couldn’t speak, really. He wasn’t going to fuck Dean in the shower like this. Not their first time. And he wasn’t ready to do it at all, really. It made him lightheaded to even contemplate. He squeezed Dean instead. Felt hands splay out on his belly, the caress of fingers against his skin. Sam smeared his lips over the bite mark he’d left on Dean’s shoulder. Made Dean squirm away when he kissed behind his ear.

“Sap,” Dean muttered as Sam turned him, let the water rinse over where he’d had his fingers, then moved Dean out of the water and to his knees. Helped him get there, ignored his exaggerated grimace as he settled back on his heels.

Sam wasn’t hard, but he was thick, heavy in his own hand and he had to close his eyes as he tried to piss down the drain, the pressure all at once insistent.

“Hey,” from behind him.

“Hm?” Sam looked over his shoulder.

“Do it on me.”

“What?”

“Piss on me,” Dean said. Blinked water drops out of his lashes as Sam turned around and stared down at him.

“ _What_?”

“Jesus christ, Sam. You heard me.”

Sam stood there.

“C’mon. I’ll close my eyes if you’re shy.”

“I’m not—”

“Then do it.” Dean shut his eyes anyway. “Before the water gets cold.”

That didn’t help. Not that Sam didn’t want to, he just hadn’t known it until that second. Now he was fighting an erection and that wasn’t making it any easier.

After a dozen seconds or so of concentrating, Sam admitted, “I don’t think I can.”

Dean peeked an eye open. Shuffled closer on his knees then leaned an arm against the tile. “Do it against the wall, right here.” He sort-of pointed with his nose to a square near his shoulder.

Sam nodded even though Dean wasn’t looking, had his eyes down now. It was easier to relax when he wasn’t aiming straight at Dean and after a couple deep breaths, he got the stream started. It hit higher than he’d intended and Dean gasped at the first spray off the wall on his skin. He turned more into it and opened his mouth. Put his tongue out, and Sam couldn’t fucking believe what he was seeing. Licking, tongue pulled long and dragging against the tiles, Dean let the river of piss flow down the wall and fill his mouth.

It was too fucking hot to be disgusting. Sam pushed, forced it faster from his body, changed the angle and Dean flinched just a tiny bit when he felt it actually hit his face. His cheek, tongue, into his open mouth and Sam leaned over, closer, and Dean opened his eyes just when Sam spit. It plopped into the pool of piss Dean was keeping in his mouth. He tilted his face up to fill up more, arched his back when Sam began to run out so it would hit his chest.

“Fuck,” is all Sam could manage when he was empty.

Dean used his tongue to push Sam’s piss out, let it trickle down his cheeks before lowering his face, letting the rest pour over him. Down his body, around his hard cock, between his thighs where Sam had his thumbs earlier.

Sam stroked himself a couple times, all it took to get him hard. “Here—”

A hand to Dean’s head, and he was pretty sure he interrupted Dean saying something about a protein breakfast as he slipped his cock into that dirty mouth. Dean scooted up, jerked his shoulders like he wanted to use his hands, but opened eagerly to Sam’s short thrusts.

“You like that?” He let Dean figure out what he was referring to; didn’t really know, himself. Either way, Dean nodded, hummed around the cock in his mouth. Ducked away to suck at the bottom of it and the way he looked with that big curved dick across his cheek—

“I’m gonna— _fuck_.” Back in Dean’s mouth, then his throat, and Dean was pushing, working Sam down, swallowing around him, too tight. Dean’s neck thickened in Sam’s hand when he grabbed him there, wondering if he was sore from being choked out earlier, wondering how this was actually happening, how had they gotten like this so suddenly, why it was so easy, was this gonna make Dean better or worse, what would Ruby think if she found out, did she already know, how was Sam going to—

He was never going to leave Dean. _Never_.

They were both panting. Dean had his forehead against Sam’s leg and the water was getting cold.

“My knees,” Dean grumbled. “Can I—”

“Yeah. Fuck, sorry. Lemme—” He got Dean to his feet and freed his hands, then let him do what he wanted in the cool water. “Sorry,” he offered, but there was that grin, that diamond glint smile that Sam had stopped thinking about weeks ago, mourning ever seeing it again.

Clean, dry, dressed, Sam hurried out to the car before Dean could catch up to him. Felt under the front seat and pulled out two bundles tied with what looked like red human hair and smelling of menthol and pepper. He got back into the room and stashed the hex bags in his backpack right before Dean emerged, shivering, his smile gone. Sam watched how his tight skin moved over his ribs, how he kept a wary eye on Sam like a starved dog.

“I was only gone for a minute,” Sam pointed out. Dean shrugged, then seemed to force himself to say, “Yeah, I know. It’s—I’m fine.”

What was it? What they had done? Sam hoped not. The cold water? Probably. Shut inside the bathroom? Maybe.

It was a combination of everything. Sam sighed. Might as well make it worse. Isn’t that how it worked? Worse before better? He reached into his pack and pulled out one of the hex bags. “Hey, keep this on you, okay?”

Dean caught the bag, sniffed it, made a face.

“It’s to keep Lilith off our trail.”

Dean stuffed it into an inside pocket of his jacket. “Okay, about that—”

Sam cut him off. “We’re gonna go get breakfast.”

Dean didn’t move.

“And you’re gonna eat. Come here.” To his surprise and pleasure, Dean crossed over to him. Small steps, slowly, but he did it. Kept flicking his eyes to some point over Sam’s shoulder, then to Sam’s mouth and away again as he listened. “You’re _gonna_ eat. It doesn’t have to be a lot, okay?” An acknowledging nod. “But you _will_. And I’ll be right next to you. Just look at me. Like I told you before, remember? If I’m not freaked out, you don’t have to be either.” Another bob of his head, but Dean was chewing his lip nervously. “Dean, hey. I need you with me. I need your help. We’ll go slow, but you gotta work through this, okay?”

“Yeah, Sammy.”

Sam smiled, held it until he knew Dean saw, then he raised his hand slowly to Dean’s face. Touched the cheek he’d hit so many times recently. Slid his palm to the back of Dean’s head, threaded fingers through his hair and gently pulled Dean towards him. Met him halfway, eyes closed, and it was like looking into Hell when they kissed. Like an incendiary going off. Phosphorescence, flames, white-gold-blue-red, blinding Sam. Dean whimpered into his mouth when he opened to Sam’s tongue, something surprised and pained. Kissed Sam back like he wanted to cry instead, but Sam felt him grab onto his shirt so it wouldn’t be broken.

Wet, desperate, perfect. It lasted long enough this time that they were breathless, open-mouthed and shaking against each other, brushing lips and smiling, tongues flicking still. Dean with hands fisted in Sam’s shirt, Sam holding Dean’s head.

Sam did the best he could not to stop touching Dean after that. Shoulder to shoulder, nudging shoes, overlapping fingers. Sam kept his right hand on the seat between them as he drove away from the city in the opposite direction of the next address and name (and probably dead person) on their list—away from Lawrence—so that Dean could touch him if he wanted to. He did; shyly at first, just a pinky brush against Sam’s knuckles while Dean looked out the side window. Sam felt the seat pressed down a while after that as Dean worked his hand underneath Sam’s.

Dean only balked superficially going into a Denny’s. Sam sat next to him, ordered for them both, kept his leg against Dean’s. Put up with fidgeting until he finally just muttered, “Put your hands in your lap.” A lick of fire along Sam’s skin when Dean did it.

He thought he would enjoy it, controlling Dean like this… And not that he _didn’t_ , but he found it incredibly distracting how…well, _jealous_ he felt. Suspicious of everyone. Not just of someone coming after Dean—even the eyes of the waitress on his brother bothered Sam as she listened to him with half an ear while looking at Dean like a piece of fucking candy. It wasn’t unusual; it had always been kind of funny in a way, how people ogled Dean. How him just standing there caused men and women alike to flush, stutter, flirt shamelessly. How it sometimes pissed people off—his face, his confidence, his charm, whatever—it made people snippy and uncomfortable if it wasn’t getting the brothers exactly what they wanted. A toss up: sometimes folks were indifferent, but not often. Now Sam felt so possessive it was making him agitated.

Protective, whatever.

Neither of them finished their meal, and Dean only chewed some of the time (Sam ordered him biscuits and gravy for exactly that reason). Sam paid with Dean at his heels. When he glanced back at him, Dean was rubbing his own wrist, eyes down, though he lifted his chin when he felt Sam looking at him. Acknowledgment, keeping himself present.

Sam was suddenly really fucking proud of Dean. This was going to work.

The diner was across the street from a giant clump of stores, and Sam heard Dean groan when Sam headed away from the car and towards the mall. They crossed slow moving afternoon traffic and Sam walked faster just to hear Dean jog a few steps to keep from being left behind, and it reminded Sam of Dean following him obediently. Arms behind his back, cock caged and stuffed full.

The mall was kind of dead around noon on a Tuesday and they were two of maybe a hundred people around. When Dean attempted to get up next to Sam, he knocked him with his elbow, kept him just behind and on his left. It’s not like Dean had any idea where to go, what they were doing here. He only needed to stay close and let Sam lead the way.

A clothing store, and Dean scoffed when they headed into it, but it wasn’t anything on the racks Sam was interested in. Closer to the counter were cases of jewelry and watches and Sam steered Dean towards the latter. Left him there with a nod to pick out what he wanted while Sam backtracked to a case that had caught his eye.

The boy that took Sam’s credit card (signed J.C. Fogerty on the back) was all Red Bull energy and a sealed-tooth smile and babbled how totally cool Dean’s new watch was and how the simple silver cuff bracelet Sam had him fetch from the display was ‘super style-y’. Said ‘no prob, dude!’ when Sam had him run the card a second time when he scooped up a bunch of braided leather bracelets he caught Dean staring at. Dean’d always been fond of jewelry. There was no way for Sam to replace the lost pendant or Dean’s ring; they were one of a kind items, but Sam liked the idea of Dean wearing things on his wrists that Sam bought for him.

The clerk’s happy rambling stuttered to silence when Sam flicked his knife open and removed the packaging from the watch right there at the counter. He rubbed his face nervously and made as if to go do something else but ended up just gaping at them as Sam secured the watch onto Dean’s left arm. Without a word, the kid scooped up the bag and plastic and the box the silver cuff came in while Sam slipped it around the slenderest part of Dean’s right wrist, then added the leather. He croaked, “Thanks for coming in!” as Sam led Dean out of the store, one pinky tangled in the bands.

Dean looked up from fiddling with his watch when the car slowed and turned into a two-spot parking lot next to a freshly black-painted colonial-turned-business a few miles into downtown. “What are we doing?”

Sam put the Impala in park, pocketed the keys and said, “Getting that ring out of your face.”

“What? Sam—”

“I don’t like it.”

Dean frowned and crossed his arms. “No one asked you to like it.”

“No one asked _you_ if you wanted it. Don’t you want to get rid of it?”

“I—no. Not really.”

“What the fuck, Dean? Why not?”

Dean shuffled his feet and barely resisted reaching up to rub a knuckle across the steel ring in his septum. “I can just… I feel it, like, all the time. It, I dunno, it reminds me.”

“Of what?”

Dean shrugged, embarrassed or something. Sam didn’t care. He wanted it gone, but he was willing to talk Dean into it rather than force him. At least right now.

“I—”

“Don’t say ‘I don’t know’. You obviously do know. Just tell me.”

“Fuckin’ bossy, dude, jesus. Fuck. I just _like it._ I don’t—I can’t explain it.”

“Try.”

“What, like—you can’t take me in there without my consent, you know that, right? Just ’cause you want it gone doesn’t mean they’ll do it if I say no.”

“Then explain it to me, and we’ll figure something else out.”

“Oh, ‘figure’—Sam, come on.”

Sam sighed, exasperated, but he was getting used to this kind of battle with Dean. He could work it out.

“So… Okay, you like being, what? Submissive?” Dean rolled his eyes and made a face, but there wasn’t another word for it that Sam knew, so that had to be it. “And the ring reminds you of that. You’re afraid or something that you’ll forget—or, or you need a reminder…to _be_ that way?”

Dean mumbled something. Sam was pretty sure it was, “It’s weird, shut up.”

“Dean, what do you think I just bought those bracelets for? The watch? It’s the same thing.”

Dean’s arms came down and he looked cautiously at his gifts, then back to Sam. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. If you want something else, we’ll do it. But that…that fucking thing has got to go. I can’t stand knowing someone did that to you when you had no say in it. There are enough reminders of that place you’ll never get rid of, aren’t there?”

“I guess.”

“You guess?” Sam laughed and Dean gave him a dirty look. “Get the fuck out of the car, Dean.”

Sam had to go around and open the passenger door, but Dean stood on his own. He had given in, was dragging his knuckles over the ring, the tip of his nose bouncing as he did it. Sam stood there and watched him do it for a minute, then reached out and grabbed his arm. “Stop it. I’m serious, though. If you want something else, we’ll do it. More permanent or, or, what, like a collar or—”

Dean’s cheeks flushed pink. “Shut up,” he hissed. “You win, okay?”

“Besides, it’s not like I’m going to let you forget.” A step forward and Dean leaned back against the car as Sam crowded him. Dean’s face lifted, but Sam didn’t kiss him, touched him instead with his leg between Dean’s thighs, their hips connecting for a few seconds, then he separated them and grabbed Dean’s coat, pushed him along and up the steps to the door of the piercing parlor.

There was a tattoo gun buzzing somewhere behind a partition but they didn’t have to wait. A quick in and out, both brothers brushing off the friendly questions about what was up, how they were, what the deal was with the permanent piece, that’s pretty crazy. It cost thirty bucks for what Sam could have done with the rusty bolt cutter in the trunk, but the ring was so thick Sam had worried about sharp edges. This guy had the right tools and a chunk was taken out in no time and Dean’s face was the way it should fucking be, _finally._ The guy said the hole, slightly smaller than a pencil, would heal on its own, keep it clean, and oh yeah, had they ever heard of arnica? For that boss black eye Dean was sporting.

“Thanks, man,” Dean said, the first time he’d talked to a stranger that Sam had witnessed since his rescue. “But I like my bruises. They’re good reminders.”


	19. Chapter 19

Dean wasn’t doing well. Drifting in and out of sleep, jerking awake. Shivering. As much as Sam wanted to get somewhere, do something useful, mostly he just wanted to take care of his brother.

“So where are we going?” Dean asked, gazing into space, blinking syncopated with the clacking of the windshield wipers.

There was a decent occult collection at a university library a couple hours into Illinois, and Sam had mapped a route to similar libraries that would lead them all the way back to Providence if they kept at it. Heavy rain slowed their progress and Sam felt sure it would turn to sleet and maybe even snow if they continued northeast.

“I don’t know, Dean. What do you want to do?”

Dean gnawed on his chapped bottom lip, his left thumb stroking absently at the sleek silver band on his right wrist. Rolled his head against the back of the seat, slouched down like a kid on a school bus; he smiled over at Sam. “Be alone with you. But that’s probably too much to ask, huh?”

“It’s not.” The reply was surprisingly hard to get out through the sudden tightness in Sam’s throat. He put his knees against the wheel to hold the Impala steady and shrugged out of his jacket. Draped it over Dean’s legs and pushed the car faster through the downpour when Dean said nothing, only tucked his hands under the warm canvas and shut his eyes.

In a Gas-N-Sip restroom, Sam called Bobby.

“Dean’s sort of relapsing.” It wasn’t a complete lie: he was obviously suffering from withdrawal. “He just needs a few days of downtime.”

“Well, it’s too quiet on the western front, so you might as well get some rest while the eye’s overhead,” Bobby said.

“Yeah. Okay. Um, hey, just in case—do you know anybody in these parts who could fill a prescription or two?”

There was a long silence on Bobby’s end. Then, slowly: “Yeah. I’m sure I do. Are _you_ sure what you’re doing?”

“Of course, Bobby, yeah. I’m gonna—I’m not gonna let him—I just—he needs _something_ , and if I don’t have it, he’ll go and find it himself. That’s all there is to it.”

“Alright, son. I guessed that’s where it was headed, to tell ya the truth. _Hoped_ it wasn’t, but—” Bobby gave Sam the name of a doctor and father-of-a-hunter only ten miles out of the way from where Sam was headed. “You know where I’m at, Sam.”

Sam thought about calling Ruby. She was gonna be pissed that he hadn’t contacted her before leaving Kansas City, but she would want to see him. Want him to go with her. He couldn’t. Not yet. He was starting to realise that while drinking blood made it easier to exorcise demons, made him more powerful, he was having a hard time controlling _himself_ now. The more he drank, the more reactive he became. The easier it was to get angry…or let the anger out.

When Sam came out of the bathroom, Dean was leaning against the car, slowly chewing a peanut butter cup, a beer in one hand and candy in the other, and Sam kind of wanted to go to his knees at the sight. Had to fight with the weird idea that it was the ghost of his brother he was seeing, struggle for breath against sudden pressure on his chest. Leaned into that strange force he’d felt the other night with Dean on the other side of the motel door: a strong wind, summer-warm and pleasant on his skin, but powerful nonetheless.

A raised eyebrow, and bright green eyes—how could he even _see_ the colour from this distance? He must’ve imagined it—followed Sam as he went into the store.

Sam trunked the two gallon jugs of spring water but kept ahold of the rattling plastic bag.

“You ready?” he asked, turning to Dean, who’d moved to let Sam at the car.

“Yup. I was thinkin’—”

“Here,” Sam interrupted, shoving the bag at Dean and getting behind the wheel before Dean could even inspect what he’d been handed.

“Benadryl?” That eyebrow again as Dean slipped in next to him.

Sam reached behind the seat and fumbled around until he found the six pack he just knew was back there. Handed Dean a full one.

“Dang, lemme finish this one.”

Sam jammed the cold bottle between Dean’s legs, got a yelp and ‘what the fuck?’ barked at him, but Sam was already steering the car out of the lot, feeling impatient. Irritable for some reason he couldn’t quite pin down. Like he was one of the very people he was annoyed by—the sight of Dean just _standing there_ shook him. Made him feel like the little brother he’d so often hated being.

Dean had been free to do things first when they were younger, still under Dad’s thumb. Dean had been able to _leave._ Take off with a girl or to work or to scope out a potential job, leaving Sam behind and it had him feeling fucking crazy sometimes. Always left behind, always out of the loop—out of _Dean’s_ loop. Sam never really gave a shit what John was up to, but every time Dean left without Sam—

He hadn’t had a lot of possessions growing up, never really fretted about leaving friends behind, or things lost between motels or cheap apartments, wherever. But Dean. Dean was _his._ His brother, his…well, he was everything now, wasn’t he? Sam couldn’t form all the words yet, but he felt them. And seeing Dean outside the car just now had brought back that feeling of being left behind, made him all at once afraid he was gonna lose Dean somehow.

Dean fiddled with the medicine box, reading the back.

“Just take half of them.”

Dean snorted. “Seriously? You do this?”

“What, no. I know people who did, though. In college: cheap way to get high on the weekend. It’s pretty safe. I’ll get you whatever you want later, but take those now.”

“Huh.”

No noise or motion after that. Sam glanced over at him, and Dean was there, looking back, an amused but perplexed twist to his mouth. Waiting.

Sam was starting to understand this. “Do it, Dean.”

And he was _really_ starting to like that hot feeling just under his skin when Dean did what he was told. Tore into the package and soon had half a dozen hot pink pills in his hand.

“Not really my colour,” he mumbled before opening his mouth wide and dumping them in. Washed them down with the last of his beer, then twisted the top off the one between his legs.

“Dean, so, listen. I meant it when I said I don’t want you taking off anymore.”

“I got that.”

“Swear.”

“Ugh. I swear, okay?”

“If we’re not together I want you to text me. Every half hour.”

“Oh my god. No.”

“Uh, _yes._ We’re turning the GPS on in your phone, too.”

“Sam.”

“It’s not a discussion.”

When Dean didn’t argue, Sam took that as a win.

“Anything else?” Dean asked after a few miles of silence.

There was, but Sam didn’t want to force an ultimatum on Dean that he couldn’t keep himself. Besides, Dean had already said he only wanted Sam.

_Just us. Me and you, Sammy._

Ruby was means to an end. They were using each other. Dean would understand when—when Sam finally told him. He already _kinda_ knew. Sam was pretty sure. And Dean would say something about it if it was really a problem.

Dean was giving him a narrow look, fingers tapping quick against the bottle.

“No. I mean… Um. Should there be?”

More scrutiny; almost like Dean was trying to figure out if Sam was making fun of him or not. Sucked on his bottom lip a little—that blood blister. “Eh, we’ll figure it out. So—” Dean waved towards Illinois “—why this way?”

Books, and Dean laughed airily at him, but he listened as Sam explained why, what he hoped to find. Sam mentioned the book tour they could go on and Dean seemed pleased by that idea. He was in a good mood in general. Finished the second beer and started on another, but forgot about it after a while, the neck ringed loosely by his fingers, condensation making a wet spot on the inside of his thigh where the bottle touched him. He nodded, made agreeable noises and some condescending ones, depending on how excited Sam let himself sound. Stopped watching the icy rain in favour of staring over at Sam, then the sighing started and Sam knew the pills were kicking in.

“You okay?”

“Y-yeah. It’s, uh—” Dean shook his head and blew air through his nose like a pony, and when Sam smiled at the thought, Dean started giggling. “Feels good. Kinda like getting buzzed but…not.”

Sam grinned but didn’t reply. A few minutes later, Dean shifted around, sort-of stretching and still sighing deeply. Didn’t complain when Sam took the beer away from him rather than let him spill it. Dean watched him do it, followed Sam’s hand with his whole body, turned in the seat to face him.

“Holy shit. I can’t believe it’s you, Sam.”

Sam glanced over at him and was actually startled at how huge Dean’s pupils were. Dean blinked slowly, breathing with his mouth open, his chest visibly moving with the effort, but he looked happy.

“It’s me, Dean,” he answered.

“No, I _know_ , but I mean…I mean, it’s like I knew… Okay, someone was coming for me, right. But I thought—” a heavy, dragging breath and he leaned against the passenger door, one knee bent on the seat, ankle tucked under his other leg and he looked like he was drifting “—I thought it would be that fuckin’ Reaper. Not you. Not you.”

“Reaper? Dean, hey—”

“But you—and here I am. And it’s you and you know how to drive this thing right?” Dean smiled, all teeth and half-lidded eyes when Sam called him a jerk. “It’s just everything’s like—” Dean made a wavy motion with his hand.

“It’s okay, Dean. I’m fine, remember?”

“Fuckin’ yeah you are.”

Sam laughed, didn’t care that hearing that made him blush. Looked over at Dean, the fucker smug as he could possibly be while squinting against the fading, cloud-filtered daylight.

“What? I mean, have you _seen you_ lately? Tha’ fuckin’ _body_ you’ve got under there. Stupid ugly rhinestone cowboy shirts.”

“Dean—”

“What’s th’matter, little brother? You embarrassed? Fuck, you’re so _weird._ Sam. Hey—” a finger jabbed into Sam’s shoulder “— _hey_ —”

“I gotta drive, dude.”

“I’m fuckin’ _hard._ I-I—fuck, Sammy. I want you to fuck me, you know that, right?”

Impossible to get a contact high from allergy medicine but fuck if those words didn’t make Sam’s own vision swim.

“Just fuckin’ pull over here. I’ll let you. Get that huge fuckin’ dick up in me. You wanna?”

“Fuck, Dean—”

“ _Yes._ Exactly. C’mon—” and he was kneeing his way across the seat, lurching like they were at sea instead of cruising down I-35 South about three hours out from Sam’s intended destination. Grabbed at Sam’s face and how he had to pull away just exposed his neck to Dean. Like a brand or maybe ice, something cutting and soft, Dean put his lips to Sam’s skin. Tongued at his sweat like piss off that wall, mouth opened wide and Sam shivered at the feel of teeth, then he slammed an elbow into Dean’s chest. Knocked Dean back to his side of the car. Sam wasn’t really mad, but if he wasn’t already hard, the way Dean played into it, how he bit his lip, his black-hole eyes round and little-boy big, chin tucked towards his chest, utter dismay on every inch of him, that would have done it.

“Are you stupid? Don’t touch me while I’m driving. That’s _your_ rule, Dean.”

“Sorry.”

“Just stay over there.”

“’Kay. Sorry.” Dean situated himself, but it only took seconds for him to start that flexing again: legs out, close to but not touching Sam (and it was so weird how this car seemed bigger on the inside sometimes, like she was giving them room when they had to have it, squeezed them in tight when they needed it), arching his spine. Lifting his hips and fuck, he _was_ hard. Bundled up tight and bulging in his jeans.

Sam put his hand on Dean’s thigh. “Don’t touch me,” he reminded, then gripped him there and tugged. Dean scooted down until Sam stopped him abruptly by letting go of his leg and almost-slapping his palm down over Dean’s dick. A sharp, surprised gasp, then he was rolling his hips, pressing into Sam’s hand. “Let me see it.”

Sam didn’t move his hand and it took a moment for Dean to pop the buttons on his fly without touching Sam’s fingers. Hands shaking when he pulled his jeans wide and down his hips, and Sam wasn’t careful about freeing him completely. Grabbed and yanked until he had a thick, silky handful. He was so warm (Dean’s teeth were chattering), sweat-sticky and just a tiny bit wet at the tip. Sam smeared it with his thumb, rubbed little circles over Dean’s slit.

“What was it like having something in there?” Sam asked, pushing hard. Looked over to make sure Dean didn’t freeze at the question, but no, he was caught up in this.

“It hurt—uh, _hurt_ s-sometimes, but, but it was heavy and like, like—always like this feeling—it’s the same as this—” Dean thrust up, slipped through Sam’s tight fist “—just on the inside. Sam?” And there was something about Dean’s tone that kept Sam from looking at him, that made him actually let go of Dean. That liked the _want_ in Dean’s voice.

Dean shifted. Slowly touched himself when he realised Sam wasn’t going to again. “It kept me from getting hard, though. You—you s-saw. I couldn’t—was, like, chubbed up all the time, but, but I _couldn’t._ ”

“Are these pills good?” Sam asked.

A peculiar whine from Dean, like he wasn’t keeping up with what was going on. “I—yeah. I don’t—I think—it’s weird. I’m seeing shit, I think. Spots and like, shadows. I hold still and I don’t have a body all’a sudden.”

“Can you do that for me? Hold still?” There was traffic up ahead; they were passing by a city and Sam was going to have to weave his way through people funneling on and off the next six freeway exits.

A breathless ‘yeah’ from Dean.

“Can you keep it up?”

“Mmhmm. Fuckin’ easy. Mind’s going crazy.”

“Okay. Just stay still.”

And he did. Eyes almost closed, cock leaking now, red and so fucking hard Sam was honestly impressed, could see him throbbing in that ready-to/just-did orgasm way.

Sam eased off the gas, let the car glide back and forth between lanes, made a game of swerving at the last second away from a bumper—something that would make Dean freak the fuck out at him normally, but now had him gasping and sighing and swaying gently. Sam slowed down to practically a crawl (still going fifty) and Dean shivered harder, tensing his thighs, then he groaned, a low laugh, when Sam pressed the car forward, a thoroughbred breaking from the pack. It was fun and maybe a little ridiculous that he knew Dean this well, that he was using the Impala to keep Dean on edge, but fuck it. Who would know? Dean seemed to love it and Sam loved Dean, so.

Free, out of city limits, Sam floored it and didn’t blame Dean when he kicked out a leg and booted him in the hip, a reaction to the sheer power of the car lunging forward, but he did backhand him. Not too hard, open-handed, but he still felt his knuckles smash Dean’s bottom lip against teeth. A wet suck of that lip into mouth, and Sam focused on the road instead of on whether Dean would be bloody if he glanced over.

“Jerk off,” Sam said like he was telling Dean to hand him the newspaper. Lost the sound of Dean complying as he found something on his player he didn’t think Dean had ever heard.

“… _I am where it takes me. I love, it breaks me…_ ”

It wasn’t hard to mostly ignore him: they’d dipped down into a valley and the water was gathered deep along the road. Too heavy for any real threat of hydroplaning, Sam still had to keep an eye on other drivers they came up behind.

“Sam?” The same (desperation) as before, but Sam just slung his arm over the back of the seat. Dean flinched.

“What’s it feel like?” Sam asked.

“Good,” Dean answered immediately, eagerly. “So good. Like I’m gonna come but—” Sam caught him out of the corner of his eye twisting his palm around his dick experimentally “—but I’m not ready. Can’t feel my hands, kinda. Just, tight on my dick. Close my eyes, could be you touchin’ me. Or, or—”

“Open your eyes,” Sam snapped. Dean did, and just in time; the frightened tilt, the frantic searching around the car only lasted a few seconds. Those eyes begged for Sam to keep looking at him, but he couldn’t—and wouldn’t, even if.

“ _Sam_.”

“Are you still seeing things?”

“Fuck. Yeah. Yeah. Like…feels like we’re stopped, an’ people’re walking by.”

“You like people watching you, don’t you?”

Dean moaned, choked his hand around the base of his dick, pinched at the head as slick drizzled out. “I don’t—kinda. I-I like _you_ lookin’ at me. Want people t’see me with _you_.”

Thinking about reminders, that fucking piercing, Sam said, “C’mere, lean forward.”

Dean pushed himself to sitting up. Slowly, like he was underwater, weighed down, and Sam waited for him as his head lolled like the action felt good. When Dean was steady, Sam caressed his face with the backs of his fingers. Turned him just a little to the right, looking towards the windshield, then punched him. That loose fist from before, his hand was big enough to cover Dean’s face from upper lip to his eye.

Dean cried out, startled and hurt. Caught himself on the dash, held onto it when Sam’s hand came up again even though it was obvious he wanted to move away. He said ‘no’ or something like it, some broken sound that Sam knocked from his mouth with a second punch.

“Lie back down,” Sam said. Forgot to stop himself from sucking at the drops of blood from Dean’s nose now on his fist. “Keep jerking off, but don’t come.”

Silently, Dean did as he was told. When Sam stole a glance at him, his upper lip was already fat and he’d have a bruise under his left eye now to match the one over it, and along his nose. Blood ringed one nostril and he sniffed pitifully even as he got himself in hand again, tugged on his cock like he was milking it.

A mile passed, and Sam could feel Dean watching him, pleading for attention, and it would be easy to pull off the road and rip Dean’s jeans off, get his legs on Sam’s shoulders, and sweat and spit and Sam’s aching, wet cock would get him open and he could fuck Dean in the car, steamed up windows and Sam’s (murderously) protective energy more than enough to keep them safe from prying eyes, but he didn’t do it. Dean wanted, yeah, but he only _thought_ he knew what he _needed._

Or, fuck, maybe it was what Sam needed. Dean like this. Strung out and desperate and willing to let Sam do whatever he wanted. Yeah, that’s what it was. Freedom and his brother beside him, and this thing that was happening between them, it was a good start.

Dean bucked up off the seat, both hands flattened on his own thighs.

“What do you want, Dean?” Maybe it would be the same thing.

But all Sam got was Dean shaking his head. He moaned, miserable sounding, his words more slurred than before. “ _Fuck._ ’M so _empty_. Hollow an’, an’—fuckin’ _please_ , Sam. Fuckin’—y’can fuck my mouth if you don’ wanna do it to me—”

A stinging slap to that neglected cock and maybe Sam would learn to be mad about such things, about being disobeyed, but all he could manage was a surprised laugh when Dean came. He barely got his shirt jerked up his belly in time or he’d have covered it, but it rolled down his ribs and onto the inside of it anyway, and Sam had to try really hard not to crack up entirely.

Dean was mumbling. Sam figured he was complaining about the mess or about Sam smacking him, but after a few seconds, he realised it was complete nonsense. Broken words and ones stuck together, no point to it that Sam could make out.

“Hey! Dean, look at me.”

Those pothole eyes and Dean’s almost-panicked breathing was rocking him with the force of it. He was wet with sweat—had he been before he came? Sam couldn’t remember, hadn’t been watching him close enough. Sam flipped the heat off and cracked his window, then rolled it back up when Dean recoiled at the sound of the wind whistling through the gap. Some garbled words, rapid-fire, but Dean leaned into Sam’s hand on his arm, let himself be pushed back against the seat. Sam risked it going seventy-five and snagged another beer from the back. Dean looked at it blankly.

“Put it against your face.” Sam helped him, guided his hand gently so the bottle was pressed to the new bruises. “You’re okay. We’ll stop. You want to?”

A nod, delayed. Humming. Dean was hearing the music, maybe for the first time. Out of tune and off beat, but he calmed down somewhat.

“ _…I’m aching for you. But you’re bound to bleed if I adore you…_ ”

They were thirty miles from the next city, and Sam hoped maybe Dean would relax enough to doze off. At least stop twitching and mumbling and waving his free hand around. Sam took the bottle back after about ten minutes when Dean spaced out.

Somethingsomething: “— _piss_ —”

“We’re almost there. Can you hold it?”

Dean shook his head but pulled his pants back into place finally. Sam smiled as he said it, but said it anyway: “Just piss on yourself.”

“F-fuck. Wha’? F- _fuck you._ N’m mm _Baby_.”

It would clean easy enough. Sam kinda wanted to push it, but… “One of the bottles?”

“Mm.” Dean fished around and came up with an empty. It took him a few tries to get aimed and relaxed and then he screeched. “Fuck! Fuckfuck—ow, _whatthefuck. Oh my god._ ”

Lips bitten, eyes closed, still pissing though. Sam caught lodging symbols on a sign they passed and moved into the right lane. “Dude, what the hell?”

“Fuckin’ _hurt._ Jesus. Goddamn.” He slid over to the passenger side, fumbled for the window. “Gotta—”

“Wait.” This was Dean’s fault. “Put some in your mouth.”

“No. Wh— _no._ ”

“You started it, Dean.”

“I—that—I—”

“That’s a shitty argument. You don’t have to swallow it. I just want you to do it.”

A cloverleaf exit saved Dean from any action for a minute, and Sam half expected him to toss the bottle out the window, but he just held it, balanced himself as they went slowly around. A gritty, grey town began to rise up around them, then he tilted the bottle to his lips. Sam almost missed it, slowed way down as they rolled into Main Street just so he could see Dean’s reaction. His coordination wasn’t great and he got more than he meant to; some slipped out under his puffy lip and Dean didn’t seem to know what to do first—spit back into the bottle or wipe his face. He picked the latter and that kept him from the former and there was nothing to do but swallow. Shut his eyes tight and clapped his hand over his mouth. He heaved forward and Sam grabbed the bottle from him.

“Jesus—don’t throw up!”

A frantic shake; glaring, watery eyes. Sam got his window down and after checking the rear view and finding the street empty, chucked the bottle away from the car. Heard it shatter; Dean marking their territory. He kept himself from laughing again, barely.

Dean coughed, wiped his hand on his jeans. “Hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Wanna get out. Want it dark.”

A crusty motel behind a Gas-N-Sip with its own collection of broken bottles Sam tried to avoid driving through. Dean had closed his eyes a few blocks back, was still sweating and moving restlessly. Sam made him get out and come to the walk-up window with him, didn’t trust him enough to leave him in the car by himself.

Sam could smell the coffee breath of the doughy young man who gave them a room for the night, two queens. Dean turned his back to them both, but the guy never even looked up, just took Sam’s card ( _Joseph Walsh’s_ card), dropped keys into the tray, ‘check out’s ten’.

Sam found the room and shoved Dean into it. Left the lights off but turned on the heating unit and cranked it up. The room immediately filled with heat and old cigarette smell, but they were both used to that.

“Take your clothes off, Dean,” he said. His brother had stumbled into one of the beds and was a shadow now, balancing, one knee on a squeaky-spring mattress. Sam checked the bathroom before going out to the car. Didn’t check to see if Dean was doing what he’d been told. It didn’t matter. He’d be easy to strip if he hadn’t listened.

Sam got the beers from the back of the car, snagged their packs from the trunk, plus a little nylon bag that clanked as he headed back to the room. The shower head was _really_ low, and Sam wasn’t in the mood. He’d probably spent hundreds on swan-neck shower extensions over the years, having left many, many of them behind in hurried flights from wherever the hell they were at the time, but it was sort of the least he could do for all the other tall people in the world that motels around the country apparently hated.


	20. Chapter 20

Sam stomped parking lot grime from his boots and brushed slush from his shoulders. Dropped the bags inside the door. It was very warm in the room now, and still dim but not totally dark. He took his time, let his vision adjust. Stretched and arched his back, felt his own bladder heavy beneath an empty belly, and headed for the bathroom, keeping his eyes on the glint of the mirror there.

Did not look at Dean.

Sensed him on one of the beds, still mostly dressed. Felt him as he passed by as if the warmth was coming from Dean, not the heater. Nothing stale or recycled about it—radiant and tempting, something bewitching that Sam had to steel himself against turning towards, basking in. He shut the door on it and fumbled for the lights, pleased when a red heat lamp flickered on overhead. Drenched him in blood.

Sam wanted the water to be hot and clinging when he cupped it and brought it to his mouth, wanted to swallow it instead of spitting. Clutched the sink and wished slender arms were in his hands, that he could fill himself with that fire, that strength Ruby’s blood gave him. He’d use it to wear himself out on Dean. Do whatever Dean needed, and whatever _he_ wanted.

Sam wanted everything, things he didn’t even know about yet, that he could feel skittering around the edges of his awareness, chewing holes in right and wrong, digging under boundaries and rules. He was going to fuck his brother. He _knew_ that, but it wasn’t what he was thinking about. Wasn’t thinking at all.

Not for the first time, Sam found himself beset by images, sensations, feelings. Some things remembered—leather, rubber, Dean on his knees. Ripping Dean free of the horror around him, rescuing (reclaiming) him, but most of what had Sam biting back a moan, straining against instinct so hard something creaked and cracked where the sink was fastened to the wall, was everything he didn’t understand, had no experience with. Hadn’t known would ever even show up on his radar.

He _wanted_ to hurt Dean. There was probably a million reasons he might feel that way, but it wasn’t like that. It wasn’t about retribution or old arguments or what-the-fuck-ever. Sam had no idea why he wanted to. It was just there now, bubbling up in him like water out of a rock. Sam had never considered himself a sadist, but then he hadn’t known Dean was masochistic. They were flip-sides to practically everything else, so it wasn’t a complete surprise. It wasn’t something malicious, either. It was just…because he could. Because Dean had _asked_ him to. The door was thrown wide open and Sam wanted to nail it shut behind them.

He wanted to _hurt_ Dean. Wanted to bruise him and see him cry and hear him scream, needed to know how much Dean could take before he broke and begged Sam to stop. He liked ignoring Dean when it pleased him, wondered what it would take to really scare him, how much he would do if Sam ordered him to. No real plan to make any of that happen, just this swirling, invasive desire to _try._

High on that desire. Buzzing inside, an itch he wanted to scrape at until there was nothing but rawness and pain, and not only did he not care that Dean wanted to be fucked up on drugs, Sam totally understood. Addictive personalities. That had always been obvious. And they were facing world destruction, if Ruby was right. If she could be trusted. And she felt Sam was on firm enough ground—he looked at himself in the mirror as he thought it—addicted to demon blood, so why not indulge Dean? He’d been through hell. They both had, apart from each other.

This wasn’t the worst thing that could be happening. They could be fighting. At odds. Dean could still be lost. They could one or the other be dead, or both—and what would happen then?

Sam stared at his reflection, skin flawless in the red light, eyes black and white. He didn’t want to think about Ruby, wasn’t trying to justify what he wanted to do, how he felt. Dean was waiting for him and that’s all Sam cared about.

He pissed and took his clothes off, draped them over the edge of the bathtub where they wouldn’t be tripped over, left the heat lamp on and opened the door.

Darker; the sun was setting. Sam stepped into the room and the cherried light cast weakly towards Dean’s form, prone on the bed, his head nestled in his arms, naked but for his flannel open around him like clipped wings. Sam stood over him, took in the shape of his body. Ankles crossed, long legs with those curved thighs, always open—even now Sam could see Dean’s cock and balls between them, soft and shadowed. Perfect ass, swelling up and dipping down to his strong back. Wide shoulders under that worn-soft flannel. Those hands that Sam had always loved, no matter if they were being mean or tending to his wounds. He put his own to Dean’s hair, fingered gently through the tangled length of it, and Dean drew a deep breath.

“Sammy?”

“Yeah, Dean. You okay?”

“Dunno.” Dean rolled onto his side and tried to push himself up, but it was too hard, his body too heavy. Sam helped him. Sat down next to him and let Dean lean on his shoulder.

“Tell me?”

“Fuckin’…seeing shit. An’ people—” Dean made a talking motion with his hand. “An’, um, spiders. ’S winter, so, not there, but I see ’em. Need somethin’ t’drink.”

“No,” Sam said. “Later.”

Dean protested with a whimper, then he sucked in a shuddering breath as Sam’s hands circled his throat. He went onto his back easy, not even trying to push Sam off. Sam leaned into his hold, push-squeezed until Dean twitched, started to fight instinctively. Sam freed a hand to gather one, then the other of Dean’s wrists over his head, and gripped his throat tighter. Dean arched and Sam wished he was straddling him, could feel that body thrusting between his legs. Arching, straining, then collapsing. Dean shut-tight eyes flickered open, rolled white and Sam counted to a slow five before letting Dean breathe.

Another five-count, Dean sucking in air through his still-bloody nose loudly, inelegantly, then Sam choked him again. And again, carefully timing. Got his legs around Dean’s ribs after a few more releases but by then Dean had no strength to writhe, was jerking under him instead, body almost completely out of his control, and only when that came to a quivering, violent peak and then settled did Sam stop. Watched as Dean fought unconsciousness to catch up on the breath he’d been denied. Gasped and sputtered, chest rising and falling frantically.

“Deep breaths,” Sam prompted. Covered Dean’s mouth. “Through your nose, like this—”

It took Dean a couple minutes to recover, and to Sam’s surprise, he started crying when he did. Not like he was hurt or scared, just, all of sudden there were tears. He kissed Sam back when Sam uncovered his mouth and put his own to Dean’s. He tasted like salt: piss or tears or blood, Sam didn’t know and didn’t care.

He slid off Dean, push-pulled him fully onto the bed and stretched out next to him. Could see the bruises on the side of his face the red light couldn’t reach. Something twinged inside him.

“I shouldn’t hit you,” he said, stroking Dean’s face exactly like he had before he’d punched him earlier.

Dean scrunched his nose, nudged at Sam’s hand. “I like it,” he replied, voice rough and silty, slow off his tongue. “Like feelin’ you on me, even when you’re not.”

It was too easy. “Wanna feel me in you?”

Dean laughed soundlessly. “Smooth, Sammy, smooth.”

Sam snorted. Pressed one knuckle against Dean’s swollen lip. “Well?”

Dean nodded, breath coming fast again. He shifted against Sam, seeking more contact that Sam only took away from him. Got off the bed and went to their bags. Sorted blindly through his, then returned to the bed with a handful of lube packets and the cord to his computer.

“Roll over.” And when Dean did with obvious effort, “Grab the top of the mattress. Don’t let go. You hear me?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.” Sam knelt on the bed over Dean’s legs, sat down on them to keep him from kicking, and wound most of the cord around his hand, leaving just enough to make a long loop. Gripped the loose end in his fist and with no warning, snapped it down across Dean’s ass. Over and over; Dean had to bury his face in the pillow when he couldn’t keep from yelling. The marks were instantaneous: cruel-raised welts that might be bloody in normal lighting because Sam concentrated on hitting the same place many times, then shifting to make angry X’s on Dean’s skin. He switched to his bare hand after—he hadn’t been counting. Thirty lashes? His hand seemed not to hurt as much as the cord at first and Dean almost relaxed, but Sam could hit _hard_ , and he fucking _loved_ the outline of his long fingers on Dean’s skin. Made a fan out of them, changing his angle to do it, and Dean tried to twist onto his back.

“Sam! Fuck, s-stop, stop stop—” but he hadn’t let go of the mattress, so Sam didn’t stop. Spanked him until his own hand was numb, then switched back to the cord until, yeah, there was blood. Dean was crying for real now: Sam could tell by the way his body was hitching, ribs sucking in tight and shaking like laughter. Sam bent, rubbed his cheek against Dean’s hair, could taste his tears in the air this close.

Nothing but little ‘uh’ noises from his brother, waves of shivering between Sam’s thighs. He shook the cord loose and grabbed one of the packets. Ripped into it, drizzled it over the head of his cock. Stroked himself a few times; hadn’t even realised he was hard until now, so focused on Dean it hadn’t mattered.

The rest of the lube went between Dean’s whipped cheeks. Sam emptied the packet, wiped down through the slick until he found Dean’s hole. Squished it into him with two fingertips and Dean was trying to relax now, taking deep breaths and moving his legs like he wanted to spread them.

“Let go.” Sam jerked on him even as he said it. Flipped him onto his back. Dean cringed when his butt dragged across the comforter, and smeared a palm across his face, getting rid of tears and drool. He was almost hard, brought his knees up and wide when Sam moved to cover him again.

Sam thought about the cord, but no, he liked his hands on Dean too much. Wrapped them both around Dean’s neck again. Heard his name, a sucked in breath cut short as Sam squeezed. Closed his eyes, Dean’s pulse racing under his fingers, felt it pound when he cut it off, and Dean bucked once before he blacked out. Sam kept as much pressure there as he could with one hand, reached between them with the other and lined himself up with Dean’s hole. Slipped away from it a couple of times, then felt that catch-give, that tight kiss against the head of his dick. Pushed in and was swallowed up. Spread his legs for a better angle and only then let go of Dean’s throat. When Dean gasped, Sam thrust forward, got himself halfway into Dean, then crashed down on him when Dean tried to shove him off, when the pain suddenly registered.

“Fuckfuckfuck, oh god—” and a scream through clenched teeth. Panting, struggling, nails raking down his chest before Sam pinned Dean’s wrists between them, bore down with all his weight until Dean could barely squirm, heels digging and kicking at Sam’s legs. It might have seemed like an eternity to Dean, but it took maybe a minute before his head fell back onto the pillow from where he’d been trying to curl into a ball. A few rattling sobs and his legs unclenched, his whole body following suit.

Slowly, Sam pulled Dean’s arms above his head, used that free space to rock forward, slip deeper inside him. Hit bottom and Dean’s eyes snapped open finally, cratered and unfocused.

“Can you see me, Dean? I’ve got you. I’m the only one here.”

Dean nodded, but then flinched for no reason, struggled to free his hands. Whined, eyes showing white until Sam slowly rolled his hips, worked against Dean like there was some way he could get deeper. It brought Dean back, and after that Sam used his body to help Dean fight the drug in his system, wanted Dean to stay right here with him. Thrust as hard as he could to keep Dean from babbling, from drifting off somewhere that seemed to be more and more frightening to him. Let go of Dean’s wrists, put hands to his head, held him still and commanded his eyes to stay on him and the way he was looking at Sam—like Sam was the night sky, full of stars, and Dean was lost at sea or some fucking poetical shit that Sam never wanted to forget—that was making Sam burn inside. Made him feel so good it almost didn’t. Was something sinister coiling inside his guts, snaking through him, blinding him behind his eyes until they were both just two points in an abyss, so separate from each other Sam didn’t hear Dean scream again as his scalp was clawed, as his skull was clamped in Sam’s hands because he was holding on, could just reach him and they were the same only stretched so far apart, so thin, never to be severed, just pulled and pulled—

Dean was curled up under him, on his shoulders almost and there was no way the angle of Sam’s dick inside him felt good as he pounded his way through his orgasm, but Dean didn’t fight him. As soft and accepting as he could be and still keep his spine intact, his neck unbroken. Sam had him by the hair, was crushing Dean’s chest with his other palm, his own pulse whitewater in his ears.

“Sam. Sam.” Dean begging to breathe, to move, to not hurt for just one second. Sam sat back on his heels and let Dean unwind.

They stayed in the room for a full twenty-four hours. There were trips out to the car—for the water and whatever else Sam could scrounge out of the trunk that would pass for food, and to pay their way through the next check-out, but Dean never went with him.

Sam kept him naked. Would have kept him tied if he’d had the means, but ordered him onto the bed, onto the floor, his knees, palms down like he’d seen someone else do. And Dean did it, stayed posed even when he was complaining about carpet spiders and acted jittery like someone was perpetually sneaking up on him.

Kept him dirty, too. Liked the stress scent on Dean’s skin, the way his neck was gritty with old sweat when Sam lapped at it. He put his teeth to the insides of Dean’s thighs, cleaned him like a cat of their come and used lube and blood.

“You’re bleeding,” Sam whispered when he tasted it, tongue worming into Dean’s soft-swollen hole. Anything louder and Dean would cover his ears, try to curl into a ball from his position on the bed, knees wide, ass up for Sam’s mouth.

“Good,” came the reply, a bitter tone to the barely-a-word, Dean’s throat bruised now, like his face, his wrists, his ass. He’d been in Sam’s lap earlier, on the far side of the bed, Sam’s long legs and his own grip on Sam’s wrist all that kept him from strangling in the noose of Sam’s hold on his throat. Pinned to the wall like that, Dean had done his best to fuck himself on Sam’s cock, thrust into Sam’s hand, trying to come before Sam crushed his trachea (Sam _wouldn’t_ but it felt like he could, looked like he wanted to, said he might). He came so hard he slipped off Sam. Hung for a moment, trying to get his toes under him because his knees didn’t quite reach the ground, and then Sam dropped him. Stood in the narrow space between the bed and the wall and fucked his slick cock down Dean’s abused throat. Relentless even though Dean’s dilated eyes were leaking and he was flushed, slow-moving, and even though the person in the room next to theirs banged back on the wall as many times as Dean’s head bounced off of it.

Sam liked the way Dean moved around when Sam allowed it. Staggering, shuffling, uncoordinated. He was hours into the Benadryl trip by then, close to coming down but not there yet, and he would stop in the middle of the room and stare. Tilt his head like he was listening hard for something, to someone, sometimes would talk back to whatever it was. Not _really_ talking. Noises and single syllables and Sam would let him do it until Dean began to rub at his claw-scarred shoulders and moan. Twice it happened, then Sam snapped his fingers, called Dean to him. Slipped those fingers into Dean’s mouth to give him something else to do.

Sometime in the early morning they managed to sleep, but Dean insisted their heads had to be at the foot of the clean bed, the comforter on the floor far away from them. Sam wasn’t sure who fell asleep first, only that Dean wasn’t in his arms when he woke four hours later. The bathroom light was on and Dean was in front of the mirror when Sam opened the door. Sam had to drag him away from it and back to bed. Collared him with both hands and lifted until Dean was on tiptoe and he was trying to talk, rambling panicked about needing to see what was under his skin. He’d _seen things_ , he swore, and Sam believed him. People at that place with like, like that X Files movie and the alien inside a human body, moving around just under the surface. Like smoke in a jar, or snakes in a bag and would Sam cut him? Silver knife, and holy water, please, _please_? He needed to know, to make sure he was who he thought he was and he admitted, when Sam slipped the silver knife’s tip into Dean’s skin just under his jaw, that he’d taken the rest of the pills.

Sam eventually considered gagging him, but it was better to listen to what Dean was jabbering about the brothel, the creatures he’d encountered. Red eyes, silver glints, blue flairs. Talons and fangs, things with shadow horns and skull-like visages transposed over human skin. Flickering shadows twice as tall as their source. Wings like bats and birds and the constant smell of sulphur and bone ash. This was good information, useful, though Sam didn’t quite know what he was going to do with it yet. Ruby had cleared the place of demons for him, but by the sound of it, there might have been many more creatures around. And Sam had walked right into their nest? Interesting.

But Dean kept going and now he was talking so fast it was kind of annoying, and then he was remembering creatures _in_ him. On him. Touching him, hurting him, beating him, fucking him. Sam couldn’t listen to that. If he was a better brother, maybe. If he knew that Dean _wanted_ to tell him these things and it wasn’t just his diphenhydramine fried brain shorting out and regurgitating what he would hate Sam knowing. Maybe someday Sam could deal with it, but not now.

He pinned Dean on his back, covered that running mouth with both his hands, held his jaw shut.

“Dean, stop,” he said when Dean started writhing under him, trying to shake free. He’d been so good up to this point, so docile and willing. “Look at me. Right here. It’s just me, Dean, okay? You’re okay. No one else is here, no one is going to hurt you like that.”

Sam knew exactly what to do at this point, how to shift them together so he could get inside Dean easy. He was still wet from all the times before, so it wasn’t that that made Dean scream behind Sam’s hands, that made him scratch and fight. Easier just to get Dean on his belly so he could clutch at the sheets.

“Sam! SamSamSam—nothing in me nothing left Sam—don’t hurt me feel it stop —”

“Tell me you love me, Dean.” Sam pushed Dean’s head down into the mattress, fit himself over and inside his brother as Dean tried to, broken words and whines making up most of it and there was no way he was going to remember any of this later, and that didn’t matter to Sam. He smothered Dean’s effort with one hand anyway, pried him up and arched him back, curled them together so Dean could see his face with those spinning, blasted eyes. “I’m the only one that’s ever going to fuck you again. No one gets to touch you. Do you understand? Do you believe me?”

Sweet sounds now against Sam’s palm, and he let Dean breathe only to have him nuzzle back into the safety of Sam’s control. Sam kissed his face, those bruises, fucked Dean like he had something to prove, to exhaust him, and whether it worked or if Dean just checked out afterwards, they stayed in bed well into the next afternoon.

Hunger woke Sam up, and there was nothing to do but go find food. Dean was still out but unsettled, kicking and rolling, so Sam woke him up too. He was grumpy and uncommunicative, clumsy. Sat on the toilet lid and glared with puffy eyes while Sam retrieved the little satchel with the pipe wrench and the swan neck in it. Wrapped a rag around the pipe already in the wall so he didn’t scratch it, twisted it free. Used his own thread tape on the extension and tightened it in place, then switched out the shower head. Still not quite as tall as he would have liked, but at least they wouldn’t have to shower sitting down.

He got in first; Dean was yawning and moving like molasses but joined him without being prompted after a few minutes. The water seemed to wake him up some, but Sam still helped him. Scrubbed him pink where he wasn’t green and blue already, got out and put a towel in easy reach, made sure Dean’s gun was in with his clean clothes, then left. Loudly, so Dean would know, but he didn’t say anything.

Dean was in sweats and a clean t-shirt, on their bed watching Top Gear when Sam returned with wet burritos and a mocha slushy thing he gave to Dean.

“Dude, you’re not eating where we sleep,” Sam said, but he was smiling as he thrust a finger towards the other bed. Dean went like a scolded dog, but he ate the guts out of his burrito and finished his drink before crawling back to Sam and passing out again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YOU GUYS!!!!! [LOOK AT THIS](http://silver9mm.tumblr.com/post/159319674530)


	21. Chapter 21

They hit the road before check-out on the second day. Dean had a hangover that would last most of the week. He was back in that hoodie and being weird, taking his boots off in the car and asking Sam to pick the music. Wearing his sunglasses all the time, even when they stopped at a diner for coffee, hood up, and always so close he kept kicking Sam’s heel. Sam didn’t mind, and couldn’t blame him. Dean’s pupils were still dilated, and he was so marked up under his clothes that anything heavier would have rubbed him bloody.

He reminded Sam to recover his shower extension on the way out, and that got Sam thinking.

“I’m surprised you did that—licked the bathroom wall, um—” Fuck, let alone wanted piss in his mouth. “You’re kind of a spaz about germs.”

Dean smiled tiredly, the same city-snow colour as the world outside the car window. “I’ve gotten over a lot of things.”

 _Or lost your will to live_ , Sam would have joked, back in the day, and Dean would have scoffed and listed a number of reasons why being alive was awesome _. Pussy, pie, booze, Baby_ always started the countdown, but this time Sam just took it for the truth he knew it to be: the symptoms of depression and stress he’d researched.

Sam drove and Dean rested. Sam could still taste him, like he was saturated with big-brother come and kiss-spit, like he’d soaked up Dean’s tears and sweat. Could taste and smell him, feel the tight burn of him on his dick, his fingers, his tongue, and he wondered how he’d ever lived his life without it. Wondered if anyone else had ever felt this way about Dean, if anyone _could_ —no one knew him like Sam did, nor loved him so completely. Other people were just phantoms, shadows at dusk in their lives.

But he was still thinking about it— _other people_ —miles down the road, and while he wasn’t in the same bad shape as Dean, he was tired and wanted some kind of distraction.

Conversation, but he could have picked a better subject, in retrospect.

“Hey, Dean?”

“Uh-huh.”

“How many people have you slept with? Y’know, girls and, and… At the—do you know?”

Sam knew he fucked up immediately. Even behind the dark lenses of stolen Ray-Bans, Dean’s glare stabbed him. A deceptive smile twisted up Dean’s mouth, popped the split in his bottom lip and a snake-tongue flick cleaned it off before Dean replied.

“Sam, why don’t you mind your own fucking business, huh? You don’t see me asking how many times you got your hair braided, do you?”

“C’mon, man, it’s not like I’ll be jealous.”

“Wow, how magnanimous of you.”

“It’s just—” _I love you, and I want to love all of you and I have to start somewhere_ “—I already know about a lot of the girls, right? And, and you were saying shit before, back at the motel—”

Dean growled, loud and angry, then banged the side of his head against the window. “ _Why are you always picking at me about shit, huh_? Leave me _alone_! Fucking _fuck_.”

And that was it for the rest of the trip. Dean sat next to him, a little grey storm cloud, rejecting every one of Sam’s attempts to make peace with his silent, impenetrable front.

He perked up subtly when Sam parked near a pharmacy. “What are we doing?”

It was always easiest to be a jerk back to him. “I already _told_ you. Stay here.”

“Sit, Ubu, sit, good boy. I got it. You don’t have to keep tellin’ me, you know.”

Sam slammed the car door on him and went to find Bobby’s doctor friend. Came out fifteen minutes later empty-handed just to fuck with Dean. The bag containing four different prescriptions, plus directions and precautions, was tucked inside his zipped up jacket. Dean’s narrowed eyes flashed at him over the top of the sunglasses.

Sam turned the car around and headed back towards the college town they’d passed through.

“Do you wanna hole up at a motel or come with me or stay in the car or?”

“Stay here,” Dean muttered to the window.

The .45 in the glovebox, Sam parked them in the wide-open lot right outside the library where there were cameras on the light poles, and he shook his cell phone at Dean instead of verbally reminding him about texting every half hour. Dean just gave him one more dirty look and kicked his feet across the seat, stretched out, and settled back to nap.

Sam was about five cars away and feeling wistful about being on a campus when he heard, “Hey!”

He trotted back to his brother. “Yeah?”

A hand out the window, gimme-fingers. “Don’t be a bitch, Sammy.”

He gave Dean one Xanax. Didn’t tell him what it was and Dean didn’t ask, just clapped it into his mouth and rolled the window back up. Sam knocked on the glass.

“Don’t forget to message me.”

“Yeah yeah. Thanks.”

Sam got three text messages from Dean (‘bored’ ‘bored’ ‘bored’) and was five minutes to the next one when he made it back to the car, a stolen Jansport bag full of occult books on his shoulder.

Dean was still lounging across the seat. Didn’t move when Sam opened the driver’s side door, left his feet in Sam’s seat. He wasn’t even pretending to be asleep. Smirked when Sam just stood there for a few seconds, waiting.

“Dean… Move, dude.”

Socked toes wiggled but that was it. Sam leaned in and swung the heavy bag into the backseat, then caught Dean’s right foot and dug his thumbnail into the arch. That got Dean moving—kicking and flailing.

“ _Fucker_.”

“You asked for it. Wanna find a room?”

Dean rubbed his abused foot with the other. “Sure. Can I have more?”

“More? Oh. No.”

“Why the fuck not?”

Sam didn’t answer. Pointed them away from the college, east towards the next set of books on his list. Dean took off his glasses and carefully rubbed his eyes, avoiding sore spots. “Did you come up with anything new?”

“I don’t really know yet,” Sam answered. “Just got the books, skimmed ’em, got out.”

“Skimmed?” Dean grouched. “That took for-fucking-ever.”

Sam rolled his eyes. Dean propped his sunglasses up on his head and pawed at the bag in the back. “That’s a lot of books.”

“The pills are not in there, Dean.”

Dean huffed and stuffed his feet back in his boots. “Just…why won’t you give me another one?”

Maybe Sam was the grumpy one. “Because you didn’t answer my question before.”

“And I’m not answering it now,” Dean spit.

“Why the fuck not?” Sam shot back. “What does it matter? You—you gotta talk to me about this shit, Dean. You can’t keep it all inside forever. Have it come pouring out only when you’re fucked up. I don’t even know what’s real with you, y’know? You said some weird shit the last couple days.”

“Maybe I’ll just stop talking, then.”

“Jesus christ, Dean.”

But Dean wasn’t done being surly. Crossed his arms and glared out the window and Sam wanted to choke him and kiss him, beg him to talk, suck his dick, give him anything and everything he wanted, wanted him to get on his fucking knees and explain himself—

He must’ve made a noise. Shifted or something. Maybe it was the way he was gripping the wheel so hard his knuckles were white, but Dean was looking at him now. Laughed not-quietly-enough for Sam to miss the nervousness there.

Stopped at a light, Sam said, “Are we really doing this?” Didn’t know why he said it out loud, what he even really meant by it. Should have asked it days and days ago, but maybe he’d been afraid of the answer, and maybe that’s why Dean didn’t give him one now. Kept watching Sam and stayed silent until Sam caught him in a wristlock inside a banana-cream coloured motel room. Dean cursed, went with sorry eyes and loose boots into the bathroom where Sam pushed him before stripping him.

Just this once, he used bloodstained rope to lash Dean’s wrists together behind his back. Tossed it over the top of the ill-hung bathroom door and under the knob on the opposite side. Pulled slowly but inexorably until Dean was on his toes, bent forward, hands angled towards the top of the door frame. Nothing to do but let his head hang and Sam knew the tension on his shoulders would become unbearable. He tied the rope off on the knob and pushed Dean so he fell back and closed the door with his own weight.

Dean made a breathy little complaint when Sam’s belt came off. Whined when Sam doubled it, tapped it against his own leg like their dad used to do, then reverted back to silence when Sam cracked the leather over his thighs. Couldn’t move but to wiggle his hips back and forth, had to look down at the red welts that showed up immediately. Shut his eyes on them but opened his mouth—it was easy for Sam to get his belt back between Dean’s teeth and around his head, and only then did he realise he hadn’t cleaned it from the first time. That Dean was tonguing against his own blood and Sam’s come.

Opening the door enough for him to slip out proved interesting with Dean’s body pulled so tight, but they managed it and Sam yanked it closed behind him. Heard Dean hit the door hard and moan, muffled.

It wasn’t _impossible_ for him to concentrate with his brother bound and out of sight, but it was challenging. Sam made a mental game of making sure to look over a page at least four times before moving on, having calculated that was the number of times per page he noticed himself drifting, distracted and turned on.

Still, it wasn’t easy, and he found himself just aimlessly going through his computer. Opened the (hidden) PTSD folder he’d made with the links Bobby had shown him that first night at his house, and a few others Sam added later: _Re-enactment Compulsion in PTSD Sufferers_ , _Somatic recall and memory overgeneralisation in trauma victims_ , _Torture as a Form of Trauma_.

The doorknob Dean was tied to rattled, and Sam deleted the folder.

He opened a different book. On first glance, it seemed fascinating. An autobiography of one C. M. Sinclair, Master of Spells. _On the Coexistence of Magicks and Science_ had a unicursal hexagram on the cover and appeared to be a first edition. Maybe an _only_ edition, as Sam was pretty sure it was hand-scribed. The introduction was as pompous as anything Sam had ever seen, full of spite and derision towards anyone who felt they could possibly understand the dire circumstances that lead the author to divulge such secrets as found herein; but that without access to the trove of knowledge denied him by the foolishness of his brothers, he felt it essential to create his own catalog of the supernatural and the cursed. An expulsion from some Freemasonic cult, Sam figured and flipped through the chapters. On the Historie of the Men of Letters, Of Alphas, The Consuming Darkness, The Cursed Mark.

The book was almost as thick as Sam’s hand was wide but the more Sam perused it, making notes on a separate sheet of paper to capture things to go back to, he realised there was very little actual information being given. Everything was _alluded to_ , not explained, almost as if this Mr. Sinclair were informally inviting the reader to come ask him about details withheld. Sam sighed and skipped to the photograph section that took up the back third of the book.

Enlarged Polaroids. This was more interesting. Sam recognised some of the things pictured: a partial vampire skull, the hidden set of fangs peeking from the upper jaw. A wendigo pelt. A spike from a wraith, illuminated by a lamp with a shade Sam was pretty sure was made from the skin of a djinn. The knife Ruby had threatened the crossroads demon with.

There were more, maybe a hundred pictures, each numbered, that led him to the index of notes. Going back and forth, he finally started learning rather than just being strung along. Most informative were the notes relevant to the pictures of a codex, which Sam, with no help from Sinclair, realised were directly related to a previous chapter, The Cursed Mark.

The doorknob rattled twice more, but Sam had finally discovered something so interesting that his whole attention was focused on it, and by the time the Dean hit the door with his heel, gunshot loud, Sam had two pages of carefully bullet-pointed and annotated notes, in order of what seemed most useful and relevant, as well as several web pages bookmarked. He hadn’t known what he was looking for exactly, and what he’d discovered definitely wasn’t _it_ , but Sam was excited.

Two hours had passed.

Sam tried the door carefully. No resistance when he pushed, Dean having moved away from it to let Sam in.

Dean was a mess. He was standing on bare tiptoes, and as soon as Sam was in the room with him, he flung himself against the door, sideways so he could lean on it, prop his body against the wood to try to ease the pull on his shoulders. His hands were purple, his face red, and when he rolled one bloodshot eye towards Sam, there were salt tracks on his cheeks. The floor was wet, slippery with drool, and between Dean’s teeth, Sam’s belt was dark and dripping with it.

Sam wished he’d brought his phone in with him, could capture this with the camera. He sat on the toilet lid and asked, “Does it hurt?”

If Dean had snarled at him, laughed, ignored him, whatever, Sam would have forgiven him. He _knew_ it hurt, but he wanted to know what Dean would choose to do. Wanted to learn how to communicate with him in a way that would tell him what Dean’s actual state of mind was.

Dean nodded. Pushed himself higher onto his toes.

“It’s been a couple hours.”

Another nod and Dean’s throat clicked as the spit he couldn’t swallow made one long string to the floor.

“Do you want me to leave you like this?”

Dean craned his head up, gave Sam a confused look, but he couldn’t maintain it, had to drop his face down. Sam gave him time to consider, time to answer, but Dean didn’t move except to rest his heels on the ground for a few seconds before rising back up.

“Okay. Move. I’ll come back in a little while.”

That got a response. Dean whined, shook his head as his knees threatened to buckle.

He couldn’t see Sam smile. “You could take more, though, right?”

“Uh-huh,” The only words he could make through the belt. Maybe his spine was too sore to nod his head anymore.

“I’m gonna take the belt away and I want you to tell me exactly what you want.”

The answer was immediate even though Dean’s jaw barely seemed to work. “Jus’ wanna be with _you_. Put me on the floor, w’ever, jus’…near you. Don’ wanna be lef’ alone in here, b-but—I will. You c-can.”

Sam had to touch him. Crowded close and ran his hands over Dean’s strained back, cupped his ass. Smoothed up his spine and then pressed down between his shoulder blades, made Dean groan at the pressure, a little shake of his head but he stilled when Sam praised him.

“I can’t believe you stayed like this for so long. You’re so good, Dean. You’d really take more for me?”

“Mhm. God.”

“Fuck. You got me so hard.” He ground himself against Dean’s hip. “Feel that?” Dean whimpered, more pain than anything, and Sam realised he was still pushing on Dean’s shoulders. Pressed harder. “Want me to let you down and take you to bed? Want me to fuck you?”

“Y-yeah. Sam.”

He considered threatening Dean. Demanding that he admit the number of people he’d fucked, been fucked by, whatever. Use the belt on Dean’s ass if he refused. But he couldn’t decide why he needed to know so badly. He hadn’t been able to hear about it the other night, and now it felt like the most important thing?

Sam decided to let it go for the moment. Put an arm around Dean’s waist, flicked his knife open, and sliced cleanly through the rope a few inches from Dean’s wrists. And just like Sam knew he would, Dean screamed as his arms dropped against his back. He lurched forward, but Sam caught him. He couldn’t straighten himself, top-heavy and breathing like he was trying not to puke, so Sam scooped him up in a messy bridal carry. Fumbled for the door and kicked it wide to let them out.

Dean cursed when Sam dumped him on the bed, and twisted onto his side, bending his elbows and flexing his shoulders like he was trying to get rid of pins and needles. His fingers were starting to twitch, feeling coming back to them. He looked so distant, occupied by pain, and Sam was fascinated. _He’d_ done this, made Dean this way. Hurt him, and Dean let him do it. Wanted Sam’s control. Let Sam give him pleasure, too. Trusted him. Sam didn’t understand it, not really. He was figuring out how to make it work for him, but when he grabbed Dean’s shoulder and forced him onto his back, onto his aching arms and numb hands, and Dean whimpered again but held still, watching Sam undress even as his eyes wavered and he grimaced, Sam had no real idea why Dean allowed this. Was it purely some damage done to him after being kidnapped manifesting itself? Had Dean always been like this, only now his filter for it was busted? How long had he wanted Sam to do these things to him?

That was the mire Sam was slogging around in: he wanted answers, but at the same time _didn’t_. Dean was so willing, so eager and even _happy_ to let Sam do these things to him; Sam wanted to just accept it. He _should_ accept it. Leave it at that. Wait Dean out, let him reveal his reasons on his own time. Pushing too hard might break something between them.

Naked, he lowered himself slowly down on Dean. Watched trepidation turn into discomfort into agony as Sam’s weight crushed his arms under him. His dry sobs shook them both when Sam pressed against ghost-cracked ribs and sucked at his bite mark on Dean’s shoulder. When Sam thrust against him, he cried out so loud Sam yanked his head to the side by his hair. Felt a lump on Dean’s skull where he’d banged his head against the Impala’s window earlier. It was so easy to hurt him; he was bruised and kicked and weaker than Sam ever remembered him being. Sam wished suddenly for a mirrored ceiling just so he had proof of what he imagined—that he could cover Dean’s body completely with his own, hide him beneath it.

With Dean’s legs wide and shaking, Sam licked him soft and sloppy and pulsing. Turned Dean on his side, smothered his grateful moan with a palm. Fit himself against Dean’s back and split his ass wide with his other hand, and still had to work to get himself inside. Just the tip, and Sam loved the way he felt digging down inside his brother like this, the way his thick, arced cock seemed to be in a scary-wrong angle, that it was going to do damage rather than feel good. He closed his eyes, Dean lipping at his fingers, held still until Dean rolled his head to look back at him. Sam pushed wet fingertips against Dean’s bruised head just to make him flinch down on his cock more. Kept poking and pinching at old wounds until Dean was crying again, was saying ‘don’t’ and ‘hurts’ but not really stopping Sam, and he was buried inside Dean to the hilt by then.

Sam played that game until he couldn’t anymore, until he was so fucking ready to come he felt mad from it, had held stone-still and let Dean fuck them both with his cringing. Dean's hands were fisted against Sam’s belly, but when Sam finally caught his throat in one hand and his hip in the other, Dean splayed them out, gave Sam that space to get closer, deeper.

Dean was hard, his cock smacking wetly against his belly and he moaned when Sam touched it.

“Hold still,” Sam warned, pulling Dean’s legs open, and the whimper Dean made because he knew what was coming thrilled Sam, because Dean _did it_. Kept his position even when Sam let go of his leg and wiggled up so he could see, aiming for Dean’s balls with an open-handed slap. Sam had to wrap an arm around Dean’s waist to keep them connected when Dean tried to double over, and he had to pull a little harder to get his legs open to do it again, had to wait longer than he wanted to the third time because Dean was so tense, quivering.

Okay, so he was still irritated. At himself, at Dean, whatever, it didn’t matter. It just felt right to do this to Dean. Sam put his forehead against Dean and squeezed his throat again, concentrating on how Dean went _softtightsoft_ around him as he slipped in and out of consciousness.

“Tell me to stop, Dean,” he rasped. Didn’t know if Dean could even hear him. Paused choking him to slap his face until he was sure Dean was with him. “Tell me to _stop._ I could kill you like this. Make me stop.”

What he got was Dean arching his back, exposing his throat, presenting himself like a fucking animal for Sam to breed or slaughter as he wanted.

“Is that what you’re doing, huh?” Sam couldn’t hold back anymore, was grinding his dick into Dean, stirring him so wide open with it Dean was going to ache tomorrow. “That what you want? Wanna die? Fuck, Dean, you’re so _fucked up_ —” He didn’t mean to say that last thing, but his orgasm made him stupid, made him cruel and unable to say he loved his brother even though that’s what his brain was screaming as he emptied himself into Dean’s insensate body.

Sam woke up sometime later, close enough to Dean he was disappointed he wasn’t still inside him. Dean was already awake; Sam could tell because of his gentle rocking.

“Hey. Lemme untie you.”

Dean stilled long enough for Sam to cut the rope binding his hands. He winced as he pulled them to his chest, then elbowed his way onto his other side, facing Sam as he lay back down.

“I don’t want to die, Sam. I don’t want you to think that.”

Sam’s stomach dropped, slow and heavy. “I know, Dean. It’s okay.”

“I’m not trying—that’s just not what it is. I want to be with you. I know I’m screwed up—”

“No! I’m sorry—”

“You don’t have to do this,” Dean said, a thick whisper, “if you don’t want to, if you think—”

“Stop.” Sam grabbed Dean’s sore wrists and squeezed. Dean’s teeth clicked together sharply, and his eyes, the colour of rye whiskey in the curtain-filtered light of the setting sun, searched Sam’s like he was reading something he didn’t want to believe.

“I do want this. I want to be with you, Dean. I’m always going to want you.”

Dean didn’t reply. Couldn’t, Sam figured. Saw how Dean was tensing up, shifting minutely like he wasn’t getting enough air. Starting to panic. Sam rolled out of bed and padded across the room to his bag and the pill bottles inside. He hadn’t read the material for the different drugs yet, but he was sort of familiar with most of them, and the dosage on the Xanax seemed pretty low, so he palmed three of those and an Ambien. Jess had taken Ambien occasionally when finals had messed up her sleeping schedule and it had always made her doze off quickly and peacefully, without any hangover the next day.

“Here—oh my god.” Sam sighed when Dean chewed the pills up and then gagged slightly at the taste. He waved a hand and Sam brought him the last beer, which he drained before Sam was able to get the top off the water jug. Dean drank from that, too, then flopped back down on the bed.

“What’d you find?” Dean asked, eyes closed, jaw clenched.

Sam retrieved a couple books and his notes and stacked them on the bedside table, then prodded Dean and yanked on the covers until they were both under the sheets.

“Um, well there’s a knife I know about that _might_ kill Lilith. She can’t find us with the hex bags around, and we could use a Devil’s Trap on her, but none of that really does us any good. But here—” He shuffled his notes. Dean was listening quietly and Sam paused for a second to watch him. Dean’s shoulders relaxed first, and he tucked one hand against Sam’s hip, his fingers chilly. Sam smiled. “Yeah so, I found something I’d never heard of before. The First Blade. It looks kinda weird, like it’s made out of bone or something? There’s not a lot about it so far, but it seems like it can kill just about anything, so I won’t—um, I’ll keep looking into it.”

“Mm,” Dean noised, drifting. “Where’s it?”

“Dunno yet. But I bet we can find out. Here, listen.”

Sam read from his notes what he’d gleaned from Sinclair’s book and the scant quasi-historical articles on the web. “There’s some kind of magic that makes it work, I guess? A curse, or—”

Dean’s gasp cut him off. Sam glanced down to see Dean cupping his hand over his bruised eye. He’d felt him move, maybe to scratch his head or something, but now his face was screwed up in pain.

“Dean?” Sam put his hand on Dean’s chest only to have it thrown off as Dean squawked and flipped onto his side, still shielding his face. “Hey, are you hurt? What happened?”

“H-hurt,” Dean echoed. “ _Hurt_. I’m _hurt_. Fuckin’ h-hurt, hurt, hurthurt—” The words were sorrow-strained and Dean pulled his hand back to look at his fingers as if expecting blood.

“You’re _okay_. Dean, c’mon.” Sam tried to roll him back over, get him to at least look up at him, but Dean curled up tighter. He gave Sam a reproachful glare.

“I’m sorry,” Sam said automatically. “I-I won’t—Dean, I’m not going to hurt you.”

The glare faded into something unreadable. “No, no, no!” he cried and grabbed Sam, almost yanked him over completely. Put Sam’s hands on his face, trying—Sam didn’t understand. Dean was practically crushing Sam’s fingers, digging in with his nails, smashing their hands against his face like he wanted Sam to press on his bruises again. “You, you, Sam, you—” he babbled.

“Yeah, Dean, it’s me. Hey, calm down! What—”

Sam was caught off guard when Dean launched himself at him. He fell backwards, Dean on top of him. Hit the floor hard enough to knock the wind out of him. Wheezing, his vision greyed at the edges, instinct kept his arms locked, holding Dean up off of him as much as he could. They were both tangled in the blankets and Sam dragged the sheet up between them, blocking Dean’s clawing hands from his face.

“Dean, stop!”

He didn’t stop. Was still chanting ‘youyouyou’ and crying while his expression shifted between hurt and nothing at all, dazed and blank.

“Me, what? Dean! Fuck, _stop_!” Sam got a knee up and shoved Dean off of him, made him skid on his hip into the side of the bed. Sam scrambled up, but Dean stayed down, wild-eyed and confused. “What are you _doing_?”

Dean flinched when Sam shouted, then his lip curled and Sam had to skip back a couple steps when Dean lunged at him. It was easy enough to get him down, but not so easy to hold onto him. More flexible than he seemed and insanely determined, Dean fought back until they were wrestling. It took a surprising amount of strength for Sam to finally get Dean pinned on his chest, rope-burned wrist twisted high along his spine.

“Are you gonna give up?” Sam panted, out of breath and missing some skin on his elbow.

Dean nodded, slick with sweat now and bleeding from somewhere. He pushed himself to his hands and knees slowly when Sam backed off, but he wasn’t going to make it onto the bed without help. Sam took his arm and hauled him up, lowering him gently to the stripped mattress. Dean just laid there, in tears again, teeth bloody.

“What the fuck, Dean.”

“I dunno, Sammy. You—you—”

“Stop. Dude, don’t.”

“You—will you—t-touch me?”

“Dean—”

“Hit me. Will you?”

“Uh—”

“I need it to be you.”

Dean spread his legs when Sam stepped closer to him. “Dean, I told you already. It’ll only ever be me.”

“Not them,” Dean insisted. “Just you.”

Sam straddled Dean’s hips. “Do you know where you are?” he calmly asked. It irritated him that Dean couldn’t be convinced that he was safe, but he kept that from his voice.

Dean’s eyes roamed around the room. It was mostly dark now, the sun gone and none of the lights on. He shook his head.

“Hell,” he answered.

Sam slapped his mouth. “You’re not in Hell, Dean. You’re right here with me.”


	22. Chapter 22

Dean never stopped talking that night, and if Sam thought he'd heard the worst of it in the last motel, he was wrong.

Ambien worked kind of like a truth serum, Sam discovered after some research. It wasn’t easy to get Dean to answer questions, but if Sam just let him ramble, unprompted, he unloaded. A gruesome recitation that involved peeled-off faces, babies stolen from wombs, and cannibalism, and it was distressingly hard to tell if Dean had been witness to or a participant in any of it. Maybe it had only been _told_ to him while he was tortured and high.

At one point, down on the cold tiles of the bathroom floor (Dean was sure the bed was a spider’s nest), Dean begged Sam to let him shoot up. Admitted that the sight of a syringe had excited him, that he’d welcomed the addiction after a while.

There had to be lines in the sand. Dean cried at being denied, but Sam fucked him there on the floor until he forgot to be upset about it.

Sam bundled Dean into the car the next morning, draped him across the back seat, mostly asleep or something close to it from the Xanax and Valium. Sam called Bobby before turning off their phones, told him they were going driving for a little while, that Dean was okay but needed some peace.

A total lie, but what was he going to say?

Sam drove and Dean roused himself after two hundred miles, enough to stumble out of the car to piss on the side of I-70 and brush his teeth. They stopped to get some drive-through pancakes, and then again so Dean could throw them up and re-brush his teeth. He was useless as a copilot, so Sam tapped the address to his next book collection into his phone and let it guide him while Dean skipped every other song on the iPod and turned the heater off and on for the next hundred miles. But at least he wasn’t chattering about knowing how to vivisect someone, or homemade zombies.

Sam knew it was a dangerous game he was playing with Ruby…and himself. He was starting to feel the lack of her. Nothing tasted good anymore (except Dean): nothing quenched his thirst. He felt shaky, watched his hands for signs of some kind of demonic _delirium tremens_ , but never saw anything. Just _felt_ it. A constant inner quaking, like he was about to split in two. He also knew that she would come find him before long, so he made a hex bag after Dean passed out. He wasn’t sure it would work perfectly, but maybe it would slow her down, throw her off their trail for a while.

Sam got bored after reading all day (for days and days now) about Hell and the First Blade and Lilith, so he googled a hardware store in—where were they, even? On the outskirts of Columbus. Found one nearby, and on a whim, after a quick glance to make sure Dean was still asleep—he was—Sam searched for a porn store. He was completely unprepared for his body’s reaction and his imagination’s leap to all the possibilities at simply seeing _pictures_ of cuffs and collars and whips.

Sam roused Dean enough to tell him he was leaving, to give him the cell phone and his gun, but he forgot to hide all the pills. Returned to Dean swaying in the shower, two Valiums and an Ambien gone from the bottles, the residue from where Dean had crushed up and snorted them still on the table.

Smiling and kind of adorable, he let Sam haul him out and dry him off, whined about coffee when he tasted it on Sam’s tongue, then retreated to the bed, silent and frowning while Sam unpacked the black plastic bags. Sam put the fur-lined leather cuffs on Dean’s wrists and ankles, and he went boneless as Sam secured them. Laid there looking—betrayed? Confused?—when Sam held the ball gag against his lips.

“You don’t want this?” Sam asked, his guts gone liquid.

His answer was that mouth stretched open very wide. Sam had gotten the biggest ball he could find in the store, black seamless rubber that squeaked as he wedged it between Dean’s teeth.

Sam settled on the bed, calmer now, and touched the ball. Smoothed the straps down Dean’s cheeks but didn’t bother buckling it just yet. He covered it with his palm, pushed a little, but it was as far in as it could go. Sam watched as Dean adjusted to the gag; breathing through his nose, struggling to swallow, sliding his lips over his teeth when they became dry.

“That’s good, Dean. Fuck, you’re so beautiful like this.”

That’s when Dean whipped a glare at him and turned his face away. Sam didn’t quite understand Dean’s anger, but he could wait it out. Dean was high and it was Sam’s fault.

“You _are_ ,” he insisted, and rolled Dean onto his side so he could buckle the gag at the back of Dean’s head. Dean blew out a sloppy breath and jerked his head away. Sam got mad back. Twisted Dean’s nipples, slapped him, choked him, but he could see Dean wasn’t giving up, giving in like he usually did. He tied Dean’s hands above his head to the large eyebolt Sam had sunk into a ceiling beam, threading the black cotton rope he’d paid an extra dollar-per-foot for because it would match the gag.

Up on his knees, hanging from his wrists, Dean was glaring, and Sam didn’t really know what to do. He’d imagined Dean would be like he usually was. Soft and mostly docile, a sponge for whatever Sam wanted to do to him, but no. He was rigid and his movements were jerky, irritated.

Sam sat in a chair and played with himself, stroked his cock and rolled his balls until they were tingling and hot, and Dean was going limp, drooping from the bolt, but somehow still looked pissed.

“Do you just not like the gag?”

Dean wagged his head a little, but Sam didn’t know what it meant.

“Did you want something different? They had, like, bits there, too. And, and…plugs, like…” Like the one he’d freed Dean from when he’d found him.

Dean grunted, rested his head against his arm and let himself swing on the rope gently.

“I’ll start showing you things before I get them, if you want. You can tell me what you’d rather have. Would that be better?”

Dean rubbed his face against his arm and took a deep breath. Sam felt that was _something_ , at least. He pulled his jeans back up and his belt free of them, and this time when he was hit, Dean arched, stuck his ass out like a target. Spread his thighs when Sam hit him there and now Dean’s dick was tiny, shrinking away from the abuse, and Sam put a hand to Dean’s back to steady him, to keep him still when Sam aimed for his lower belly and hips, just above that soft, small thing.

Dean tried harder to protect his chest, though. Tried to get his elbows over his nipples as Sam beat them apple red. He screamed, muffled and throaty around the ball in his mouth, twisted away, but Sam grabbed a fistful of long, sweaty hair and held him in place, made him scream again as he worked an almost-bloody bruise over Dean’s heart.

It seemed like he was glaring again, and Sam stopped for a moment. Searched Dean’s expression carefully—noticed around his eyes there were new freckles: burst capillaries from the force of Dean’s screams. But it wasn’t too-much, agony, or even rage Dean was conveying. He was ready to please Sam, whatever it took.

Sam pulled the rope free from the hook and Dean went down onto his elbows, offered his ass again. Sam thought maybe Dean’s ribs hitched when the belt was dropped on the floor, but Sam could hit just as hard with his hand. Won sad moans from Dean as he spanked him until his palm was sore-numb, but Dean never moved, not even when Sam slipped his mouth over Dean’s hole and his tongue into it. Traded spanking and licking until he just couldn’t anymore and Dean was drooling and hard again.

He was only getting off maybe half as much as Sam did, but he never complained about being ignored or neglected, and Sam _really_ liked that. Eventually, he was going to see how long Dean would go without an orgasm before he would say something…

Starting with his ankles and working his way up, Sam flicked the cuffs off Dean.

“Stay,” he said once Dean was on his back. “You did so good. You were perfect. Be quiet unless you want me to put this back on.”

The gag had to be yanked from Dean’s mouth—it had been too tight, splitting a cut that never seemed to heal on Dean’s lower lip, leaving deep furrows in his cheeks. Dean had to bite that bleeding lip to stop his jaw from trembling so hard his teeth clacked together once he was free of it.

His jaw felt dislocated when Sam nipped his way into that stretched mouth, like it would never close again without help and there was only one thing to do with it. Sam straddled his head, dipped his hips down and his hard cock into Dean’s open mouth. Fucked him like that, slowly, Dean’s tongue slip-sliding on his shaft, felt the occasional graze of teeth as Dean tried and failed to coordinate his overworked muscles. Sam humped his face lazily, only pausing when he accidentally slipped out.

He shifted around so he could drag black and blue bruises to the surface on Dean’s chest and Sam loved it when he did something—sucked too hard, shoved another finger in—that made Dean lose his concentration, made his rhythm falter.

He put his mouth to the side of Dean’s dick, curious to see if he could bruise it. It made Sam’s jaw ache, but he managed a pretty red splotch before he gave up. Dean was swearing and thrashing, but that didn’t matter once he had all four fingers inside Dean.

“I’ve almost got my whole hand in you.”

“ _Ohfuck_.”

Sam laughed, amazed. Pushed harder and felt an incredible, almost frightening slip as another few centimeters were swallowed up. He shook his arm, vibrating it, and Dean panted. His cock was pouring pre-come all over his belly.

“What do you want me to do, Dean? Want me to see if I can get it inside you? I’ll have to stop and get lube. Do you want that?” He rolled his fingers against each other, knuckling against Dean’s prostate, and it wasn’t fair to expect an answer.

Dean said nothing, his mouth open like he still couldn’t help it. Absently stroked a thumb against Sam’s leg.

It finally sunk in that Sam could keep Dean in this state. Dean wasn’t going to take this away from Sam, wasn’t going to suddenly decide he didn’t want what they were doing. He wouldn’t tell Sam he was hurting, wouldn’t tell Sam no if Sam really wanted something from him. Dean was willing to do whatever Sam asked of him, and Sam loved him for that.

“Up,” Sam said. There wasn’t really anything Dean could do but let Sam flip him, shove him around with his hand still inside him, and Sam had to force himself not to twist, to core Dean open with it and force it in up to his wrist and then try for more. Dean gasped when Sam pulled free, wiggling his fingers in the loose space as he did. Sam scrambled for the lube, making a note to himself silently to _never_ start fucking around again with Dean like this without it nearby.

“I’m gonna put it back in.” His palm full of lube, fingers dripping with it and fuck, three fit so easily this time. Dean was going to be sore from this—so why stop now? Slipped his pinkie back in. Spread Dean open so he could see the deep-dark pink inside him. Curled his fingertips, found Dean’s prostate, dug into it until his hand was cramping and Dean was clawing uselessly at the sheets, pouring slick like a faucet. They both gasped this time when Sam’s hand popped in past the knuckles.

“I wanna—” Sam tucked his thumb, dumped more lube over the back of his hand, twisted his wrist around so he could get it into his palm and into Dean. Little push-push-pull movements until his knuckles disappeared again and he was so close. Dean was shaking; Sam could feel it from the inside. Soft, clinging flesh around his hand, fluttering, pulsing, a hot, wet glove Sam wanted to fit into. Steady pressure, and then Dean made a sharp noise and Sam felt him lurch forward, muffling something in the balled up sheets. Maybe ‘ow’, or ‘fuck’—

“I’ll stop, I’ll stop. Here, wait, Dean. I won’t—I’ll stop, baby, just hold still.”

He didn’t want to stop, and didn’t take his hand out right away. Flexed his fist just a little, pried Dean open one last time. Wriggled his fingers, touching Dean so deep inside him. Finally pulled back enough to get his thumb free first and Dean almost collapsed with relief, and it didn’t seem to hurt him as much now when Sam fucked four fingers back and forth into him.

He’d gone soft again, and Sam rolled his hand, rubbed those knuckles inside Dean until pre-come dripped in uneven strings from him, but he never got completely hard. Sam kept him open with just two fingers and by now Dean’s body wasn’t able to snap back closed. Ass and mouth, broken open for Sam.

Dean went down easy, legs together, and he didn’t even blink when Sam mounted him and fed his cock into the loose, slick hole. Sam came within a minute, barely moving, the throbbing, hot flesh around him too much to withstand. Dean moaned so pretty and grateful that it only seemed natural to slap him.

“I’ll get a rag,” Sam offered when he felt like he could stand. Dean smiled, looking stoned and sweeter than he’d ever want to hear about, and Sam filed the whole ball gag incident away with how-many-men as something he’d investigate later. Not when he had Dean like this, so happy and calm and _here_.

They slept and Sam woke sometime later. He hoped Dean would stay asleep, but ended up waking him when he peeled the covered back just to make sure Dean wasn’t bleeding between his legs. Thumbed his ass cheeks apart and no, no blood. A little puffy, and Dean sighed when Sam spread him wider. He was so soft, and his ass seemed like it was made to fit in Sam’s grasp. Massaged Dean gently with his thumbs and the heels of his hands. Kissed the bruises and bite marks on his legs, the welts on his ass, flattened his tongue against Dean’s hole. He hissed, then sighed again when Sam drizzled cool lube over him, and held Sam’s wrists while he was fucked, Sam knocking lewd, sleepy noises from him.

“Y’know,” Dean slurred from the bed, half a day later, startling Sam with the sudden word, “if they’d known what bein’ nice to me would get ’em, they coulda saved themselves time ’n’ wounded guards. Cracked a lot quicker this way.”

Sam marked his spot in the manuscript he was reading—his heart was already pounding when Dean spoke, because he’d _found something_ , something he could work with, something that was giving him the first glimmer of hope—and went to the bed. He brushed Dean’s hair off his forehead and peered down at him.

“Do you need anything?”

“That gag.”

“What?”

“No, I mean, ’m sorry about that. They—I was always fuckin’ gagged.”

“Oh. Yeah, I know. I’m sorry, too. I should have thought about that. But…do you know why I got it?”

Dean tossed in the bed, pulled the covers up around his neck until he was just a face poking out, but he didn’t try to avoid Sam’s touch as his hair was played with. “No.”

“Sometimes…I don’t think you know what you’re saying.”

Dean closed his eyes when Sam brushed his fingertips over his eyelashes. “Whaddya mean?”

“You’ve done it a couple times now. Just…talk…um. Say things and I don’t know if they’re real or not, or, like, if you want to be saying them.”

“Huh. Like what?”

“Dean…”

“Like repressed memories, or somethin’?”

“I don’t know what they are.”

“For one thing, I’m not _repressed_.”

“That’s not—you literally said you don’t remember, and—”

“Sam—” and there it was, the temper flaring “—just—do whatever you want, okay? You don’t need to explain it to me, and I don’t want you to. If you don’t like the shit that comes out of my mouth, fine, by all fuckin’ means shut me up. I’m just tellin’ you why I don’t like it.”

Angry, but weirdly reasonable.

“Okay,” Sam said, tugging on the sheet. He wanted to see the bruises on Dean’s chest. “You look really good with it on.”

Dean laughed like he didn’t want to. “Fuck you, Sam. This is why I always ditch bitches after sex. Get all introspective ’n’ shit.”


	23. Chapter 23

When Ruby caught up with them four days later, she was _pissed_ , and Sam was definitely going into withdrawal.

She’d been calling, texting, leaving messages, but Sam ignored them. Put his phone on silent mode and left it in his bag. If the world was actually ending, he figured he’d notice. In the meantime, he read his stolen books, drove to where he could steal more, and hurt his brother.

These flashbacks or whatever Dean was experiencing seemed to come in waves. About every twelve hours, depending on the cocktail of drugs in his system, Sam would hear more about the club’s take on the Spanish Inquisition or medieval witch trials, Dean’s witnessing of it, and his participation in it. A little landslide of horror that Sam was shaking loose from him every other time they fucked, right before Dean fell asleep, sometimes just upon waking.

Sam would listen to some of it, just enough to enrage him (or turn him on, depending on how breathless and frightened Dean was), then he’d gag Dean, no matter how much he resisted it. In the silence afterwards, Sam would make notes; he’d started keeping a record of what Dean was describing, and tried to identify creatures that frequented the place, that had used Dean, had made him perform for their pleasure, forced him to watch their own savagery as if he was to learn from it. Demons, vampires, sirens, djinn. Probably skinwalkers, maybe werewolves or hellhounds. Humans. Definitely lots of humans. And things Sam had no references for.

Two hours before Ruby pounded on the motel door, Dean’s storytelling shifted from reminiscing to projecting.

“He’s g-gonna f-find me,” he sobbed, burrowing his face in Sam’s armpit, shifting lethargically so he was thrusting his leaking, ignored cock between Sam’s hip and the bed. Sam cuddled him in close and tugged on the rope wrenching Dean’s elbows as close together as possible. Dean gasped and bucked harder.

“Who, Dean?”

“S—A-Alas- _Alastair_!”

“No, he’s not. He’s dead, remember? I killed him. You saw him dead.”

Dean whimpered and shook his head stubbornly. “Gonna _find_ me. _Sam._ ”

Sam reached over with his other hand and pulled Dean’s head up by his hair. “No one’s gonna find you, and no one’s gonna take you away, okay?”

“Comin’ for me,” Dean whispered, and fuck, he was terrified. A disconsolate pout ruining his perfect mouth, he searched Sam’s face with mournful eyes for some kind of comfort.

“Let them,” Sam said, and Dean squeezed those eyes shut and fought to hide against Sam’s side again. Sam could only put up with his whining and flinching at every little sound for a short time before he gave Dean two Valium and a generic phenobarbital, then gagged him. As he buckled it behind Dean’s head, Sam noticed that now his own hands were visibly trembling. Three beers and a Valium did nothing to calm the shakes or settle his racing heart. He was sweating, and his guts felt like they had teeth and were trying to gnaw through him.

He ordered a pizza and paid a little extra for the dinner special of a salad and cookie dough. There wasn’t any way to cook it, but he figured if nothing else, maybe Dean would eat it raw. Sam had finally picked up on Dean’s sometimes-aversion to meat, and figured whatever else he’d been tube-fed had been bland, so the only thing he was actually interested in putting in his mouth that wasn’t attached to Sam was sugar. And even then he couldn’t always keep the food down.

Sam almost jumped out of his too-tight skin when the delivery person cop-knocked on the door. He checked—Dean hadn’t moved, was still tied wrists-to-ankles, elbows tight, gagged, passed out. Sam opened the door—and there was Ruby.

“Here’s your fucking pizza, _Alvin Lee._ ”

Sam snatched it out of her hands and threw it onto the floor behind him, then shoved her away from the door. He slammed it in her face. The shaking ramped up immediately until his vision was actually impaired and he had to close his eyes, focus on breathing slowly and carefully. When he opened his eyes, he didn’t feel like he was going to faint, so he double-checked Dean—asleep, secure—got the room key from the table, and went outside.

Ruby was where he’d pushed her, black-eyed and furious.

“Where have you _been_?”

“I-I—uh, hunting Lilith. Why?”

She folded her arms, leather jacket creaking. “No, you _weren’t._ And you wanna know how I know that?” She didn’t wait for answer, seemed to jump the space between them until she was right up against him, a nail painted the colour of old, dried blood jabbing him in the sternum. “ _Because_ , shit-head, _I_ know where she is _._ And you aren’t anywhere fucking near there.” Ruby took a deep breath, flattened her hand on Sam’s chest. “I know you’re not stupid, Sam. If I can find her, you should at least be close behind. So, I’ll ask again. Where have you been?”

Sam swallowed hard. God, her little hand was so cool, even through his shirt. “Look, um. Can we—c’mere.” He took that hand in his, gently, and walked down to the end of the motel. He could still see the door to his room, would probably be able to hear Dean if he stirred, called out. Ruby saw him measuring the distance and didn’t bother not rolling her eyes.

“I’m _sorry_.” And he was. Felt sorry, at least. Felt sick and feverish and starved. Headachy and gross. “It’s just…what you told me. About that, that _place_. Looking for Dean still. I’ve been moving us around, trying to protect him.”

Ruby jerked her hand out of his. “Really? Wow, just wow. Sam! Stop being an _idiot_! Big picture here, okay? You don’t stop Lilith, _everybody dies._ ”

“Well,” he fumed back, “why don’t you help me find them first! I’d be able to concentrate a lot better if I wasn’t worried about it. And, and anyway, I _have_ been looking for Lilith! I have! And I’ve found other ways. To kill her. Maybe.” He faltered to a stop at Ruby’s incredulous expression.

She tilted her head back and glared at the sky before snapping back to him, her eyes their stolen deep-brown again. “I’ll humour you. Fine. Tell me, what have you discovered?”

“Um, well there’s your knife. That one you had when, when I…”

“When you drank all that blood,” she supplied. “It’s wearing off, isn’t it?”

“Your knife,” he insisted.

“Ugh. Yeah, _I know_. I’m gonna give it to you anyway, dummy.”

“You are?”

“Well, yeah. But, Sam, that’s still _killing her._ And you know what happens when you do that.”

“What about—uh, what about the First Blade? I read—”

Ruby frowned and shook her head. “No. Uh-uh. That’s…that’s not gonna work. Where did you even hear about that?”

“A book. Same place I read about your knife.”

“Oh. Well, forget about the First Blade. For starters, no one even knows where it is.”

“Someone’s got to.”

Ruby stared at him, then threw up her hands. “You’re just wasting your time with all that. What the fuck has gotten into you, huh? You look like shit, Sammy.”

“Thanks.”

“It’s true. When’s the last time you had a meal or slept?” She craned her neck, sniffed. “Or showered?”

“I don’t…know. You brought the pizza.”

“Lemme get you what you need, huh?” she hummed, smiling, touching his arm, reeling herself in on it, up against him again. Hand to his flat, empty stomach.

He shivered. “What I need is the book you have. Lilith’s book. And your blade.”

Ruby sighed. “They’re in my other purse. I’ve read it every which way from Sunday, and I’d tell you if there was anything new. Promise.”

“I need that fucking brothel off our backs.”

Her hand fisted his t-shirt. “I should have never let you go in there.”

“What? What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Ruby—”

“Sam—” she was glaring up at him now, obviously irritated at having to spell this out to him “—haven’t you figured it out yet? What, are Dean’s recollections of that place all sparkles and candy?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You walked into _Hell_ , Sam.”

It wasn’t the surprise it should have been. There was a visceral reaction, sure: his hair stood on end, his mouth dried out. But really, that was the only explanation for what Dean had been jabbering about.

But, still.

“How…how is that possible?”

She let him go, stuffed her hands in her pockets and looked around. Circled behind him so she could lean on the wall, hidden from view. “It’s complicated. The blood helped. Yeah,” she said, reading his expression, “I had to get you primed for entry, so to speak. Was doing it anyway, figured it would be a bit of a test drive.” She shrugged to herself, and Sam felt he was missing something, but she hurried on. “It’s not _really_ Hell, though. I mean it kinda is. More like, Hell’s greenroom. An antechamber of sorts.”

“Dean was in Hell.” He had to try the words out before he puked the feeling of them up.

“Sort of. Are you listening?”

“Yeah, I am. Fuck, Ruby. So there’s a building in Rochester that’s a Hellmouth?”

“Not exactly. And it moves around. I said it was a chain, but it’s not really. It’s one place that pops up, just, wherever. I don’t know their itinerary.”

“So, what, it’s like a demonic Brigadoon?”

Ruby made a disgusted noise. “Can you _get_ any more dorky, for fuck’s sake.”

“They could be anywhere, then? No matter where we go?”

“Yeah, I guess so. Whatever! Sam, the important thing is, Lilith is running it. She’s running _everything_ right now. Stop her, and you’ll get to stop them!”

“‘Get to.’ Like it’s some kind of fucking reward.” He put a hand up to cut her off, wiped his mouth with it while she shook her head, irritated.

They’d been out here too long. Dean might have woken up. Might be disoriented or scared. Sam was off balance and having a really hard time concentrating, controlling himself.

“Sammy.” Touching him again, petting his arm. “You need it. I can tell just by looking at you. You need to keep training.”

He scoffed around tears in his throat. Tears of need. For revenge, for blood. “I’ve learned your tricks. You’ve trained me enough. I’m not a fucking dog, Ruby. Just give me the knife and point me in the right direction, and I’ll take care of this. But I need a little more time.”

“What the fuck for?” she shouted, tensed up like she wanted to stomp her foot, and he almost laughed at her, at the ridiculousness of the image, but she looked murderous.

“I’m not leaving Dean. I’m _not._ If I have to do this, I’m going to find a way to bring him with me.”

For once, he had her speechless.

“I’ve thought about this. I can’t leave him alone, not after what happened to him. Especially not if he was in fucking Hell.”

“Like he’s gonna want to go back.”

“I’ll work that out with him. I’ll explain it, like you said. That it will be different because it will be me.”

Ruby closed her eyes, probably to keep from rolling them right at him again. Opened them wide and seemed to be biting back her own laughter. “Okay. Okay! Fine, what the fuck ever. Bring him along. Get him to sell his soul and he’ll end up in Hell—”

“What, no. He’s not gonna sell his soul. That’s why I was thinking the First Blade. I read it can turn someone into a Knight of Hell. His soul won’t go anywhere, right? He’ll just become…kind of like me, won’t he?”

“Uh, I have no idea. But you know what? Cool. You do that. Find the First Blade, convince Dean to be your shining knight, whatever. But _on your own time._ When did you last watch the fucking news, huh? Haven’t you noticed there’s demons everywhere you turn?”

Sam hadn’t noticed. He’d been reading and rereading books bought and stolen, plotting a hopefully erratic route that wouldn’t be traceable. He’d been awake all hours of the day and night, sometimes not knowing which was grinding by outside the motel window. Fucking Dean, barely eating or sleeping, and he realised it only seemed like a few days had passed while, now, his body was telling him it was _weeks._

“Thirty-four Seals have been broken, Sam. That’s more than half,” she said, quietly as if someone would overhear and understand what she was talking about. Slowly, like he couldn’t do math anymore. How bad did he really look to her? “It’s been weeks,” she stated, like she could read his mind. “You need more.” But she didn’t say what, because that was fucking obvious. “You can’t just exorcise her. And you might not be able to get close enough to her to kill her with the knife, if it’ll even work on her; I don’t know for sure. So I’ve got to show you what to do. _I know_ —” a hand to his face now and fuck she smelled good and he could see her pale arm when her coat sleeve slid back, see the delicate blue veins just under her soft skin “—you won’t leave him. But you gotta. Soon. Tonight. Tomorrow at the latest.”

“Why?” he asked, the sound muffled by her wrist where he’d turned his head, was mouthing against her. Felt those veins with the tip of his tongue.

“Lilith is after you, hex bags or not. She’s hot on your trail, and if she finds you before you’re ready for her, _really_ ready, we’re fucked. And not the fun kind of—oh—fucked.”

He’d nipped her, but she didn’t pull away. Was cool shade to his overheated skin, all up against him now. “How do I get ready?”

“I’ll show you, baby. Here,” she said, tugging her arm and the blood he was near to sucking to the surface away from his mouth. He didn’t care that she could probably feel him shaking when she leaned into him, breasts pressed to his ribs needlessly while she fumbled in her jacket. “Take this. To tide you over.”

Sam accepted the copper-finished flask from her, and it took everything he had not to open it right there and guzzle from it.

“ _Call me_ ,” she commanded. “Or I’ll come back. And don’t think you can sneak away, Sammy.” She said it jokingly, as if it weren’t something he had immediately considered.

“Spying on me?”

“Well.”

“Okay. Okay, I’ll call you. As soon as I can.”

“Twelve hours. Or I’m coming to get you.”

He believed her. He also didn’t want to let her go, even though he had to get back to Dean. Held her hand without realising it until she squeezed his, smiled at him like a shy school girl, and drifted back slowly as they neared his door.

“Enjoy,” she sang out, giving finger guns at the flask he was gripping. He looked down at it, then crammed it in his back pocket. When he looked up, she was gone.

The pizza was still on the floor and Dean was still asleep. Passed the fuck out, actually; it took Sam several minutes to wake him up. After he’d drained half the flask of demon blood down his throat, brushed his teeth and changed his shirt, worried that Dean would smell Ruby on him, he sat on Dean’s legs and rubbed circulation back into his wrists while Dean came around. Groggy, swaying when Sam sat him upright, he shook his head at the pizza just like Sam figured he would.

“C’mon, you gotta eat something,” Sam begged, holding the little plastic tub of dough out to him.

“Eat it offa your dick,” Dean mumbled through a dopey smile and with closed eyes.

That wasn’t a terrible idea, but Sam wasn’t in the mood for once. “Want another cold shower?”

“G’dammit. _No._ Fuckin’, why’re you so _mean_? I never did shit like tha’ t’ _you_.”

“Yeah, right. You really wanna get into all the fucked up pranks you pulled on me over the years? Remember the mac-n-cheese powder?”

Dean managed a grin and an eye open. “Teach you t’drink all the OJ in the mornin’, huh?”

“Eat some sugar, jerk.”

“ _Fine._ ”

It wasn’t much of a meal. A few bites of salad and two pieces of pizza for Sam, little balls of chocolate chip cookie dough and the toppings off a single slice for Dean, but they sat shoulder to shoulder on the bed while doing it and for a few minutes Sam wasn’t thinking about death and Hell and drugs and eternity and torture and demons.

He figured he’d ruin the moment himself. Have some agency over it.

“Hey, Dean?”

“Yup.” Eyes closed again, most of his slight body weight propped up on Sam.

“Do you think we’ll still be chasing demons when we’re sixty?”

“Fuckin’ hope not. Adult diaper wearin’ years.”

“No they’re not. Oh my god. Whatever. I’m just wondering like, what if we could…win? What if there was a way we could just…put an end to all of it? A way we could go after the source. Like, cut the head off the snake?”

One of those heavy sighs, like Dean had been forgetting to breathe. He scooted his butt and flopped onto his back. Naked, covered with goosebumps. Sam flipped the blanket over him. Dean freed one hand and groped for Sam, wanting him down on the bed, too. When he was, leaning on one elbow and blocking the light of the bedside lamp from Dean’s face, Dean asked, “That what you want to do? We can find a way, I bet, we try hard enough.”

It was difficult to sound thoughtful, to kill the excitement in his voice at Dean’s amicable response. “Yeah. Yeah, okay. ’Cause you gotta have goals, right?”

“You got somethin’ in mind?”

More careful, measured words. “I dunno. Maybe. I mean, this Lilith thing is a good start. I’ve been reading more—y’know, all these books we’ve picked up? What I’ve been looking for is—there’s a ritual.”

“Mm.”

“Well, if I do it right…maybe…maybe there’s a way to like, close shop on Hell.”

“Sounds too good to be true.”

 _It’s not good at all, which is why it will work._ “Yeah, maybe. Hey, um, I found some material that might help figure it out though. There’s an estate sale happening tomorrow and I thought I might just get the books beforehand.”

“Lil’ B and E, huh?”

“It’s few towns away. Big occult library being sold off. Traced a couple books to this owner, so it’s worth a shot.”

Sam whispered the last words, trailed off. Held still and watched his brother drift away again. His hand had been on Sam’s arm the whole time and now it dropped bonelessly to the bed, pulling the thin blanket tight across Dean’s body. Concave belly under linty green fabric. Green like Dean’s eyes, with the same faded, worn appearance. Skin pale pink, scarred. So many scars. Needled and hooked and clawed and stabbed, slashed, burned, shot, stitched.

Love like a heart attack hit Sam, tensioned his chest so tight it forced all the air out of him in a breathy sob he bit down on to keep Dean from hearing.

Was Dean ever really going get better? And what did that even _mean_? At his best, Dean was a killer. Put himself in harm’s way constantly. Maybe it _was_ better if they just walked right up to death and did something useful with it, something big instead of piddly cases; a ghost or two here, a witch there, hoping to catch some monster that only came around once a century. In Hell, with Dean by his side, they could do so much more. They would change the world. Ruby was right about that, and if they were willing to die to save other people anyway, why not go big? …And if Sam was honest with himself, which he was really really trying to be, he wasn’t. Willing to die. Not the way they’d been going. Not with a tombstone-split skull from some cranky Colonial era spirit, nor his throat ripped out by a pissed off vampire.

It wasn’t ego that made the idea of ruling Hell appealing, it was that it would be _meaningful._ Important.

Dean would understand, Sam was sure of it. If not right away, he could be convinced.

Sam touched Dean’s face just to see him flinch.

If they did this right, Dean would never have to be scared again.

“Dean, hey.” No response. Sam got up and got his phone and went into the bathroom.

 _Bring the knife_ , he messaged Ruby.

_Planned on it_

Sam knew it wasn’t going to go over well, but typed it anyway. _Going to leave it with Dean._

_No!? We need it!_

_No we dont. Use me. I know what u want me to do I think. Im ready_

_You’ll need more_

_IK_

_Lets go?_

_Yes. Ten min._

She was probably already waiting outside.

Back at the bedside, he nudged Dean’s leg. “Wake up, man.” Slapped his cheek lightly. Once more, harder. Dean’s eyes fluttered open but Sam was already hitting him again, out of habit. Put his other hand on Dean’s hip to hold him down when he bucked up like the pain had a direct circuit to his cock. Like his only way of dealing with it was to imagine being fucked by it.

“Sammy? Fuck.”

Maybe he should wake Dean up a little more. Get his hands around Dean’s throat and Dean’s knees between their chests and work some of the sizzling dark energy out of Sam’s system. But no, Ruby was right. He was going to need all of it to do what she wanted him to do, probably. But he couldn’t resist straddling Dean’s body again, getting a fistful of Dean’s dirty hair and squeezing until he yelped, eyes wide now until Sam raised his hand again, closed them to the backhand that made his teeth clack together.

“You awake now?”

Those teeth chattered in response, base fear and arousal such a beautiful combination in Dean. Sam didn’t want him to be scared. Not of anything that could really hurt him. But Sam would never _really_ hurt him; somehow this was different. And Sam was pretty sure no matter what happened with them, Dean would always give him this. He didn’t really understand what was different about it, how Dean could look him in the eye after Sam hurt him, how he could still be himself and even be affectionate towards Sam after the things Sam put him through. He didn’t get it, not yet, but he loved it and loved Dean and nothing would ever change that.

Dean tugged on him, and Sam let himself be kissed. It didn’t help the whole not fucking right now thing, but, whatever.

“I’m gonna go,” he said finally, hand over Dean’s mouth to stop him. A blinked response, curious. “Those books, remember?” A little nod. “You’re gonna stay here. Salt lines, loaded gun. Stay awake for me.” Another yes. “And go get dressed. I’ve got something for you.”

He sat on the bed and waited, watched until Dean had his clothes in hand and was heading into the bathroom, unconsciously holding them over his hard dick, and Sam couldn’t actually remember when he’d let Dean come last. The bathroom door closed and Sam darted up. Threw open the motel door and there was Ruby. He put his hand out.

She just stood there, tongue flicking side to side across the backs of her teeth, her expression somewhere between hostile and appalled.

“What?” he hissed. “Give me the knife.”

“Unbelievable,” she muttered, then reached behind her and pulled out the blade. She didn’t-quite hand it over; Sam had to almost pry her fingers from it, but once it was his, he closed the door on her quickly.

It looked beyond dangerous but felt like it belonged in his hand somehow. An antler handle, age-darkened and bloodstained—he could smell it, centuries of gore soaked into the porous material. Perfectly balanced, almost floating in his palm as he flipped it around a few times. The markings were fascinating—he’d have time later to translate them. Sharp, serrated, the point something only someone insane would think appropriate. Sam loved the knife immediately.

“What the fuck is that?” Dean asked, splashed clean and in his t-shirt and jeans, like Sam had told him.

“It’s, uh, a demon-killing knife.”

“The fuck’d you get it?”

“Dean, I’ll explain later. Just, here.” He held it out, hilt first, to his brother. “Take it. I need to know you’re safe.”

Dean didn’t take it. “Ruby give that to you?”

“Does it matter?” He grabbed Dean’s hand and slapped it down on the hilt.

“Apparently not.”

“I’ll be back in a few hours.”

Dean said nothing. Just looked at Sam, the knife clenched in his fist. There was nothing to do but leave.

Ruby was crouched down on the far side of the Impala and slipped in across the driver’s side when he opened the door. She still had that peculiar look on her face, like she was analyzing him for the first time, or with some new information at her disposal. Sam didn’t care what her problem was, and she didn’t harass him.

“Where to?”

“First and Washington,” she said, pointing. “I’ve got something for you.”


	24. Chapter 24

Sam could have changed his clothes, showered somewhere, but that might have seemed like he was hiding more than he actually was.

Or something.

Really, he just wanted to be with Dean.

After what he’d done—why he was walking back into their motel room as the sun rose behind him, covered in blood and his mouth tasting like a slaughterhouse, his hair smelling like burned bodies and his fingers and dick like Ruby—all he wanted was to tell Dean about it. He wanted Dean to _understand._ To be proud of him. To see that look on Dean’s face that was all the assurance he’d ever need that they were going to win. Sam was already sure of it, but he wanted that light in Dean’s eyes, too.

What he got was Dean sitting at the room’s rickety table, posture everything he’d learned from their dad. Sam was disappointed, but not surprised. Expectations never really suited him.

“Hey,” Sam said, shutting the door behind him.

“ _Hey_ ,” Dean flung back, faking every last expression of casualness. “You got a little somethin’—” He gestured to Sam’s stiffening shirt.

“Yeah, I know. I got jumped. Couple of demons waiting for me.”

“Oh. Couple demons. Where were they waiting, exactly?”

Ruby’s knife was on the table near Dean’s hand. Sam frowned. “A few towns over; I told you that. What does it matter?”

“It doesn’t.”

Sam shrugged his shoulders and toed off his boots.

“Probably needed this more than me,” Dean mused, fingers tapping the table next to the knife. “Or maybe you had help.”

Sam sighed as he popped the buttons on his ruined shirt. “I didn’t have _help_ , Dean. I got lucky. Holy water got me back to the car, then salt rounds and an exorcism kept me from getting killed.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m going to shower.”

“Don’t suppose you need any help in there, either.”

That stopped Sam. “What are you talking about?”

Dean picked up the knife, something to fiddle with. Dug at the engraved symbols with one blunt nail. “You gonna keep doing this, huh?”

“Dean. _What_?”

“Takin’ off on me. Fuckin’ leavin’ me behind, like I’m holding you back or something. When are you finally just going to leave for good?”

Guilt like Sam never thought he could feel almost strangled him. If it hadn’t, every last detail would have poured out of him: Ruby, Lilith, Hell, his powers—that he could _kill_ now, not just exorcise. He could snuff out a demon, make that black smoke dissipate into nothing that could possess or hurt anyone ever again. All he managed to get through the grave-dirt heavy shame suddenly trying to collapse his chest was, “ _Never._ ” Was grateful Dean didn’t seem interested in looking up at him, sure his own face was flaming, his eyes salted and burning.

“No? If you’re not, then what are you doing?”

Sam cleared his throat, and Dean looked up at that. Had to see Sam’s horrified expression, but there was no reaction. “I’m not… I’m not doing anything. I told you, I just ran into demons. It wasn’t supposed to go like that. I’m not doing anything, Dean.”

Dean nodded. Looked down again. Then shook his head instead. “Sam, if you’re gonna keep your little secrets, I can’t stop you. Just do me a favour and don’t treat me like an idiot.”

“I’m _not._ ” It came out automatically, little-brother indignation taking over.

Dean put both hands to his head, scratched his scalp, bent back in a stretch that crunched up his spine. “Mm-hm,” he groaned out. Straightened up and gave Sam a slow, dark-eyed once over. “Whatever.”

Sam showered. Had tried to insist more, but, with the water clearing his head, he was grateful Dean had pointedly ignored him. Protesting too much. He knew better, but there was that damned _need_ to please Dean. To keep on his good side. But it was going to get harder and harder to do the longer he kept up this charade, this Ruby-Lilith-Hell centered deal he had to make good on sooner or later.

Sooner, Ruby had insisted last night. Very soon.

When Sam came out of the bathroom, Dean was sprawled on their bed, one hand over his stomach, his expression miserable.

“What’s the matter?” Sam asked. “Do you need—I left my bag in the trunk. You want—”

“Nah, man.” Dean waved his hand. “Fuckin’ guts. The pills shut me down or something. Need to lay off for a little while, I guess.”

For some reason, Sam shivered. “Oh. Okay.”

He felt Dean’s eyes on him as he moved around the room, but he didn’t want to throw out any guesses as to why. Might bring up something Dean hadn’t been thinking about at all.

“So, where you’d get that knife?” Dean finally asked.

Yeah, Sam had completely forgotten about promising to explain that last night.

“Uh, I’ve had it. For a while.” It felt that way, anyway. Like the knife had always belonged to him.

“No you haven’t.”

“What, yes I have.”

“Sam, don’t you think I’ve been through everything we own in the last few weeks? So unless you’ve had it up your ass, I’d have found it.”

Sam didn’t know if Dean meant for him to laugh at that, but it felt like a near-miss when he did. Dean smirked and called him a prude, and it felt like a miracle when Dean dropped it.

“Let’s get outta here,” Dean said.

“Yeah. Okay.”

“I’m driving.”

Dean took them about six hours south before he had to give the wheel over and take a phenobarbital. He’d thrown up twice along the interstate and the second time he didn’t make it to the side of the road. Puked sour smelling bile into this hand, had to let Sam wipe him off because there was nowhere to stop in a construction zone. But before that happened, for the first time in—Sam couldn’t even remember at that point. It had been for-fucking-ever since they’d been in the car like this: Sam in the passenger seat, flipping through spellbooks and fighting with maps, Dean guiding the Impala one-handed through slush and slow traffic, bitching good-naturedly when Baby ate his Doobie Brothers tape during _Eyes of Silver_.

“Payback for neglecting her. Sorry, sweetheart,” he said, patting the dashboard. “I deserve it.”

Then he’d gotten sick, tripping into the first stages of withdrawal. Winced, hand back over his belly. Started sweating, pale and breathing out in weak panting breaths. They traded seats at the next stoplight, somewhere near Chattanooga. Sam hadn’t wanted to go this way, but he didn’t argue with Dean. Had a feeling it wouldn’t be too long before he was back behind the wheel. Swung them eastward, and Dean crawled into the backseat and fell asleep. Woke up when his phone rang half an hour later.

“Dean, who is it?” Sam asked but Dean didn’t pick it up. Groaned and handed it over to Sam.

“Hello? Hey, Bobby. What’s up? Uh, oh, we’re fine. Yeah, no, sorry. I know. So—oh, yeah? Where? When? _Where_?”

Dean should be writing this shit down, but Sam got them headed northeast.

“Blue Springs,” he told Dean later, a quarter of the way there.

“Where?” Dean sort-of said from the backseat, sedated and sipping water, eyes shut.

“Bobby said a hunter disappeared up there a couple days ago. A little resort town that has got something going on this time of year, according to what vague history is available, and a few sketchy eyewitness accounts.”

“Somethin’?”

“A festival. Bobby thinks maybe it’s a ritual. So did the hunter lost up there, um, Cochran.”

“Why?”

“Wine.”

“Sleepy-time grape juice? What’s that gotta do with it?”

“It’s the brand that comes from that specific town. _Liberalia_. There’s a connection to some old Roman fertility god. Once every decade or so a couple goes missing in the area. There’s a lot of hiking trails in the mountains around, but—”

“This Cochran lose somebody?”

“Yeah, his parents. He’s been waiting for the last ten years to see if he’s right about it. A sacrifice or something. Told Bobby before he left, then fell off the radar. Bobby said it might be a Seal, too. It’s been a thousand years since the last cult of this god Liber disappeared but they might be trying to raise him again. Rebirth, so to speak, as he goes through a cycle from young man to an aged, wise one.”

“Boring. How long we got?”

“We’re about a day away, and it’s a week-long festival. Or ritual.” Sam peeked at Dean in the rearview. “You wanna stop for the night?”

They stopped even though Dean hadn’t answered. Passed out for another hundred miles before Sam found a desolate little motel along the dense edge of the Cherokee National Forest. Dean was steady enough on his feet Sam felt comfortable leaving him to check them in so he could delve into the surprisingly modern town the motel clung to like a loose-stitched button. Tracked down food, booze, and a few other things Sam wanted.

Back at the motel and in the shiny, white pine hell that was their small room, he asked Dean if he wanted pills and was surprised when Dean waved them off again.

“Wanna be clear-headed.”

Didn’t want Sam to feel like he had to worry about him. Didn’t want Sam to leave him behind anymore.

It was going to complicate things for Sam when— _if_ he needed to…go to Ruby. But he could work around it. Get Dean to work with him.

Right now, Dean was being patient, Sam had to give him that. Had let Sam hustle him into the tiny, clean bathroom; put one hand on the sink to balance himself while Sam stripped him, eyes tracking where Sam put his bracelets and watch. Gave a sulky sigh, but opened his mouth when he had to and went down to the floor without resisting. Nodded when Sam asked if he could shut the door. Sam could hear if Dean was in trouble, and as he prepared things, there was only one quiet shuffle of head on folded up blanket and a soft clearing of throat in all the time it took.

Dean didn’t even raise his head when Sam reentered the bathroom; just registered the change with a sleepy half-blink, his eyes unfocused on the pressboard cabinet a few inches from his face. It was the clunk of the two hard plastic water bottles on the countertop he reacted to, lifting his head to look.

Sam held his breath.

Eyes round and wide, then narrow, then glaring. Dean shook his head no and his fingers twisted into fists behind his back. He tried to roll off his left side, but Sam put a foot to his hip to hold him in place.

“Look, just lemme do it once. Just this once and never again. …Unless you want me to.”

There was no real answer, but Dean’s head fell back to the blanket, defeated, and Sam hid his grin at how easy this was. As private as Dean had always been, he had expected much more of a fight from him over an enema.

“It’s coffee mixed with water,” Sam explained, unwinding the surgical tubing from his pocket and slipping the flow clip on one end. He was already hard and feeling kinda stoned on his excitement. He didn’t understand the appeal, couldn’t bring himself to examine it too closely, really.

Dean made a noise, a blush on his cheeks now to join the dirty look.

“You have to hold it. Fifteen minutes.”

Another noise, another toss of Dean’s head. Sam ignored him and used a clip pulled from a clothes hanger to secure the tube from slipping out of the first quart bottle. Gravity would work to pull the mixture down the tube and into Dean. The liquid was warm, maybe too warm. Sam almost jerked off into it, but that would have just made him last longer in the end and he’d give Dean that gift, at least.

He closed the clamp, let it hang down by Dean’s knees, and squatted next to him. Shoved a towel haphazardly under Dean’s ass, then he moved Dean’s legs, the right bent a bit higher than the left. As he pulled a little jar of coconut oil out of his pocket, kept there for warmth, to make it soft, he asked, “Do I need to tie you like this? I’d rather have your legs free so you can get up quick.”

Dean holding still was his answer, which was fine because Sam was running out of words. He honestly couldn’t _believe_ Dean was not throwing a fit over this.

Two fingers scooped into the soft oil and Dean took a long breath through his nose as those fingers slipped between his ass cheeks and into him, and Sam couldn’t help pushing to his knuckles. He loved this. It was almost more intimate than his dick inside Dean. With his fingers he could feel things: heat, smooth walls, that rough place that made Dean say Sam’s name like a revelation. So hot inside, so tight around the bones of his fingers. Sam made himself stop instead of working Dean open like he wanted to. Oiled his fingers again and slicked up the tube so it would feed easily into Dean’s guts.

Sam clicked the clasp open some, letting the coffee run through and onto the towel, clearing the tube of air. The first poke against his skin and Dean tensed up, but it was a tiny thing and went in despite Dean’s resistance. A few inches, slowly, then more, maybe eight, and Sam opened the clip all the way. The first rush of warmth inside him made Dean huff, but he was still and Sam watched with rapt fascination as the level of the liquid began to slowly go down in the bottle.

“Supposed to clean your liver,” he heard himself say, “which I guess will be good for you, but I just want you to be filled up as far inside as possible. All you need to do is relax and let it in. If you’re tense it will spill out and I’ll make you get up on your hands and knees, put your face on the floor. Do you want that?”

Dean’s fingers unfisted and he took another deep breath and Sam wanted to laugh, but he kept it to himself. The first bottle was almost empty and Sam clipped the hose shut before transferring it to the other bottle.

“Half a gallon,” Sam muttered, mostly to himself but somewhat to unnerve Dean. “Then I’ll start the clock. All you have to do is hold it.”

Well, that wasn’t all, but one thing at a time. Besides, when he stood and began shedding his clothes, Dean kind of got it. He tucked his chin against his chest as if that hid him, and closed his eyes. Doing that, he missed what Sam took out of his jacket and placed on the towel, out of Dean’s peripheral.

Naked, Sam settled on the floor behind Dean and put a hand on his brother’s hip, the other to his head. Sam’s hand was big enough, strong enough, to grip and turn Dean’s face around. Sam didn’t say anything; just wanted to look, wanted to see Dean’s eyes and his still relatively calm expression. Wanted to see the ‘before’. And as he was looking, Dean’s steady glare was suddenly cracked by a frown of actual discomfort and Sam felt him shift. A little bit of the coffee water was spilling out, a weak stream along the underside of Dean’s ass cheek, darkening the towel.

“It’s almost done,” he soothed, checking the bottle. Nearly a full half gallon was up inside Dean, except for what was slowly staining the towel, and Sam decided to have mercy. Clipped the tube shut and pulled it from Dean’s body.

Dean stared up at the ceiling and his resolve was crumbling. He was sweating now, and when Sam leaned to get in his line of sight, Dean refused him, glancing away. Sam let his head go and Dean pushed his cheek back into the bedding.

Sam examined the rate of the leak. No big deal, but it was a good excuse.

“Too much for you to hold, I guess,” he said.

Dean said nothing, the large black ball nestled between his teeth taking care of that.

“Or maybe you’re just too wrecked back there to keep from leaking. Do I need to stop fucking you so much, is that it?” A cutting look from the corner of Dean’s eye, but two could play at ignoring. “You need something to plug you up, is all.” Sam had his fingers back in the coconut oil as he spoke, smeared it over the short, thick glass dildo he’d found at the only adult shop for fifty miles in any direction.

Dean groaned, a long vowel sound, when Sam rolled the glossy head of the toy against his hole, but he didn’t move, let Sam push, open him up on it. The bulbous head popped past strained muscles and the rest of the glass rod slid inside like it belonged there. To the base, and Sam nestled that tight, kept his palm on it just because he liked the feel of the hard glass and Dean’s soft ass at the same time.

“Fifteen minutes,” he reminded and Dean sighed. And again, when Sam leaned down and kissed his neck, licked at the sweat there.

“Do you feel full, Dean?” he asked, because he was right against Dean’s ear. “Fucked deeper than I could ever go? It’s still me. I put it there; I’d keep your guts full of me all the time if I could.”

He got a low, quiet whine from Dean at that. Dean was getting hard, probably despite himself, and Sam ran slick fingertips along the underside of his cock. Just once, real quick, and yeah, it seemed to surprise Dean. “You have to do something for me: you have to come before I take it out.” He stirred the toy around. “Or I’ll do this all over again, and I’ll use more. Another quart, all the way up to a gallon. Or can you come for me when I tell you to?”

A muted question. Maybe some kind of plea. Sam kept his right hand on the plug inside Dean, wrapped the oily left around Dean’s cock, and he stroked him through the first hard cramp. The second one hit a few minutes later and Sam moved the dildo then, fucked Dean with it until he was whimpering, sweat running from under his arms and along his brow. He let Dean move, shift himself more towards his front, his knee hitching higher, giving Sam more access to his ass. The move caused another cramp and Sam _had_ to press his hand to the muscles quivering under the taut, swollen belly. Dean’s dick tapped against his wrist. After Sam ground the heel of his hand into Dean’s stomach, low, and for a long minute, he grabbed that cock, stroked it from base to tip as Dean’s breath stuttered behind the gag.

“Fuck my hand, baby, come on. You’re doing so good. It’s almost time,” Sam said, ready to come himself. “So full, filled up with me. C’mon, fuck yourself for me, just a few more minutes.”

Another whimper, stressed and pained, but Dean did what he was told, bucking his hips cautiously, shoving his dick through Sam’s hand. Sam took hold of the toy and began to meet Dean’s thrusts with it, slamming it in, kneeling over him, enthralled and so in love.

When Dean faltered, when another cramp made him groan desperately, Sam just kept fucking the toy into him and Dean sobbed his way through the last minutes, boneless and shaking.

They probably both could have come from just Sam fucking Dean’s swollen and heavy guts, but Sam wanted more. Dean let out a grunt of protest when Sam’s hands left him, but it was barely done when suddenly his own hands were free, the cuffs deftly unbuckled.

“Up,” Sam commanded, dragging Dean to his feet, palm back against the toy plugging his ass. He spun Dean around and pushed, but stopped him when Dean was halfway onto the toilet. “Here, no, put your hand on it, hold it in until I tell you,” he said, taking Dean’s wrist and shoving his hand between his own legs, making sure Dean understood he was to hold the toy in place as he sat. The glare was back, but Sam just bit his lips and knelt in front of Dean, pushed his legs open and grabbed his cock again.

“You have to come. When you do, you can take that out.”

They both knew what would happen then and Dean growled at him, tried to shift away from Sam’s touch.

“I’ll do it again, Dean. You know I will.”

Daggers, but Dean leaned back a little, moved his arm to give Sam room to jerk him off. More oil. Not that Sam needed it, he just liked it, liked having Dean slippery and easy in his hand and that Dean liked it too was evident when he let his head loll and his eyes close and Sam felt Dean’s wrist move, fucking the toy into himself.

“Fuck, Dean, that’s it. Come for me, let me see…”

A minute, no more, and Dean’s eyes snapped open and they were begging. Sam could only nod, fall back against the counter and watch as Dean went up on his toes, legs wide and trembling, his own hand on his cock now, working just the head, and he flushed scarlet behind his gag as he finally orgasmed, his cock spitting ribbons of come up his chest.

There was a loud clang as the toy dropped into the toilet and then fluid and filth rushed out of him over and over, and Sam was transfixed. Dean was gorgeous, vulnerable and exposed, his face a striking mixture of pleasure and pain, his hands messy and he didn’t know what to do with them, one covered in his own come, the other wet with coffee and oil and everything inside him and he looked helplessly at Sam even as his body rid itself of what Sam had done to it.

Sam was so hard, and if Dean hadn’t had that damned gag in his mouth, Sam would be standing over him and fucking his throat. Fuck. He had to fuck Dean.

The helplessness turned to confusion when Sam jumped up, grabbed a towel and began to soak it in the sink. He heard the toilet flush and turned to see Dean elbowing the handle behind him, then reaching for the towel. Sam didn’t hand it over, and that’s when the glare returned.

Dean said no this time; Sam had heard the sound before, but he wasn’t going to stop now. He snatched at Dean’s wrist and had his arm twisted around in a heartbeat, had his brother back on the floor, on his knees, and Dean squawked when the cold, wet towel hit his skin. Sam wiped haphazardly at the mess on Dean’s ass and thighs and chucked the towel into the bathtub. There was more than enough oil still on his hands, on Dean, inside of Dean, that it was easy to get into him, to shove his cock into that wet, throbbing hole and bury himself to the hilt.

Dean’s cock was still twitching, dripping between his knees and he tried to scuttle away, but Sam shoved him down with a hand between his shoulder blades.

“Face to the floor,” Sam growled. Got what he wanted, and Dean was so hot inside. Sam wasn’t going to last, just like he’d planned.

The smell in the room was making him lightheaded, but he decided that he liked it. The thick scent of coffee and sweet coconut oil, Dean’s rank, angry sweat, and the dark, heavy smell of deep inside him, and they were both covered in all of it now and Sam added to the mess, emptying himself as far up inside Dean as he could.

“Fuck. Fuck, Dean, god—” His own babble drowned out Dean’s noises until Dean squealed, high-pitched and pissed off. But he kept his hands on the floor, and Sam finally relented.

The gag came off and as soon as it did: “Lemme up, Sam, please, man, I'm not—I still— _will you just get out_?”

His cock slithered free of Dean, slicked in come and everything else and Sam wanted to do it all over again, but Dean looked like he wanted to murder him instead, so, on shaking legs and with Dean muttering ‘ _fuck you_ ’ and hiccuping, Sam left him in the bathroom.

The fan came on and the toilet flushed several more times but Sam knew he was forgiven when the shower started and the door was cracked as an offering of company.


	25. Chapter 25

All three roads into Blue Springs were blocked off with big orange Jersey barricades. Signs that said ‘Event In Progress’ were strapped to them, conspicuously lacking detour arrows. Sam had to park the Impala off the side of the road, and Dean was furious and paranoid about leaving her behind. Made Sam cobble together a hex bag for her, used holy water to finger paint protective sigils on the doors. They loaded a couple duffle bags with weapons and any spell-making items Sam thought useful, and began the one-mile trek into town. Slow going, Dean with his head down, Sam carefully measuring his stride so he didn’t get too far in front.

Birds sang around them, wintering goldfinches and juncos, and Sam heard the distant knock of a woodpecker through the trees. The road was sand-salt grit under their boots, but the sound of snow _whump_ ing off hemlock and oaks became less frequent, until Sam realised it was because there was almost no snow the closer they got to town. He stopped, turning back the way they had come, waiting for Dean but also surveying. There seemed to be some kind of arbitrary line where the weather redirected itself away from this area. They’d seen it before in…Wisconsin? Michigan? Those fucking Christmas gods. Sam ran a thumb over the nail of his right index finger. The nail had grown back, but goddamn, it had hurt having it pulled out. It was stupid how little things were sometimes more painful than serious injuries.

“Quit staring at me,” Dean huffed. He wiped his nose on his sleeve and squinted over his shoulder. “You see this?” He motioned at the snow behind them and at the absence of it around him. Sam nodded. They walked a little further, and Sam thought he could hear music, or maybe bells ringing in the distance, and then Dean swerved off the road and into the trees. Sam caught up to him as he stretched an arm out and pinched a fluttering red ribbon in his fingers.

“It’s satin,” Dean said. “Look, there’s more. Both sides of the road.”

“Red and white,” Sam confirmed. “Like a circle around the town,” he said after they’d followed the line of them along the eastern edge of Blue Springs. A decent hiking trail led them down into a park edged by the treeline. Sam and Dean saw the masks at the same time. Hanging from the trees alongside the ribbons, they looked handmade and ugly; burlap with ripped open eye holes, torn mouths, satin tongues flopping out of huge red lips. Painted white like grotesque theatre masks, or all red, making the sacks look crusty and stiff with blood, and Sam had to take Dean’s arm to get him moving again. There were more as they got closer to town: in the trees, on street signs, and in yards, draped over light posts like heads on pikes. Dean shouldered up against Sam as if the things were going to lunge at him, screaming. Like they knew his name or something.

“Where is everyone?” Dean finally grumbled.

“It’s Saturday morning, maybe they stayed up partying and are still in bed,” Sam offered hopefully.

“Yeah. Right. Sign back there said a population of over two thousand, and no one’s up for breakfast?”

They rounded a corner just as all the churches in the city sounded their bells once again and Dean put the back of his hand to Sam’s chest, stopping them both.

“Or maybe _everyone’s_ up for breakfast,” Sam said.

“Guess the regular ‘no service’ laws don’t apply here, either.” Dean grinned as three mostly naked girls spilled out of a bar and grill a block away, the only clothes between them two sets of panties, a bra with a broken strap and a skirt torn all the way to the waist. They were laughing and handsy with each other, drunkenly spinning in circles, giggling more than they were making their way anywhere, but after a few minutes, they disappeared into a dark bar a few doors down. The glimpse inside both places revealed packed tables and barely any standing room, and less than a minute went by before the scene repeated itself on the other side of the street. This time, the group was mixed, men and women of various ages and stages of undress, some of them clutching wine bottles and all of them pawing at each other, regardless of sex.

“So, Bobby sent us here to break up an orgy, is that it? Because I don’t see the problem.”

“Dean, I _told_ you. They’re trying to raise a god, I think.”

“You think? Well, how ’bout we go talk to the locals, see if we can get any info?”

Sam rolled his eyes at Dean’s eagerness and took a breath to lay down some rules, but snapped his mouth shut in surprise when Dean grabbed his hand. Laced their fingers together and tugged. He was smiling still, but at Sam, whatever unease those masks had generated in him now gone. Sam followed that smile, the pull on his hand, those green eyes, across the street towards the bar and grill, and only some half-remembered instinct made him look to his right as they crossed the broken white line.

“Wait, Dean. Down there.”

Smoke had caught Sam’s eye. Five blocks away there was a roundabout, a granite pillar marking the center. Around it were four burning barrels, lazy flames peeking over rims, and though Sam couldn’t see behind the pillar, he guessed by the haze of smoke coming from back there, an extra barrel would make five and that would make a pentagram. Two figures in dark red robes tended those fires and as they watched, one scooped up something small and white from a canvas covered pallet at the base of the pillar and dropped it in a barrel, sending up a flurry of sparks. The wind changed, bringing the stench of burning hair and blackened meat to them.

“Dude, they just burned a baby goat,” Dean said.

“Yeah.”

“Ew. Alright. Orgies, burnt sacrifices, springtime in the wintertime. Definitely god-raising material. Do we lay waste to a bunch of drunk, naked people, or take out Helter and Skelter down there first?”

They made it to the sidewalk before Sam said anything. He stopped them, squeezed Dean’s fingers just to really feel him. Grounding himself. His heart was pounding hard in his chest for no reason he could discern. Sweating in the cool air, he watched the cloaked figures down the block as they moved from barrel to barrel, tossing in bundles of dried plants and more carcasses, and oils that made the flames lick up high and eerily coloured for a few seconds.

“Let’s just see what’s going on with the people around here first,” he said to Dean, eyes on those ephemeral violet flames.

Sam pulled open the door to the restaurant, Dean peeking over his shoulder as they entered. The lights were off and only what sunlight made it in through the closed blinds illuminated the huge, L-shaped room. It was a pretty nice place, or would be on an average day. Currently, it was a disaster. Old food crunched and smeared beneath their boots as they edged their way inside. It smelled like cigarettes and spilled beer, like body odor and piss. It was loud with voices and music; Sam felt Dean wince when a man’s booming laughter sounded to their right. He let Dean’s hand go just long enough to get a grip on his wrist, fingers tangling in the leather bands there.

Tables were overturned, a few were being danced on. Almost everyone was naked, or close. Men and women, young and old, no care for attractiveness or compatibility, they were up in each other’s shit. Kissing, grabbing, cuddling, fucking.

“Jesus christ,” Dean whispered.

Sam backed up, keeping Dean behind him. Shielded. Moved towards the untended bar and empty stools down at one end. There were liquor bottles all along the bar top and the patrons moved like swarming insects to and from the (apparently free) booze.

“Not sure we’re gonna get anything coherent outta these guys, Sammy,” Dean observed. He squirmed out from behind Sam at the last second before Sam got him in the corner, taking the seat closest to the crowd, and Sam let him. Dean was the one drunk people were more inclined to open up to. And Sam was right there behind him. He dropped their bags on the floor by the wall.

It didn’t take more than a couple minutes before the revelers noticed them. A stumbling pod of girls, barely college-ready, honed in on Dean, lead by a short brunette with her skirt up around her hips and her bra falling off both shoulders. Dean saw her approaching and after a moment’s hesitation, turned on his stool slightly so she collided with his left thigh rather than coming right up between his legs.

“Where did _you_ come from?” the girl demanded, digging her fingers into Dean’s jacket and yanking him down, closer to her face. Sam could smell the wine on her breath from four feet away.

“Pittsburg,” Dean lied. “My cousin, uh, works with the fire department here. I was invited. Been looking forward to this all year.”

The girl clapped a hand over her cleavage. “Oh my god, _me too_. _So_ excited. Like, I can’t believe it’s not just another dry run, yanno? We’re really gonna freakin’ _do it_ this time!”

Dean wagged his head. “Yeah, _totally_. Um, _when’s_ it happening, again? I wanna be ready, you know.”

“As if you could miss it! The whole town’s gonna be out there tonight!”

“Tonight?” Sam repeated, startled.

The girl slung her hungry gaze past Dean finally and her jaw dropped when she settled on Sam. She shivered, then glanced behind her, but her friends had ditched her, gone back to the booth they’d come from, having lost one of their group under the table and were now trying to drag her limp body out by the ankles. She was going to get pork ribs and peanut shells up her ass that way, Sam thought.

“Who’s _he_?” the girl loud-whispered, hand up around the back of Dean’s neck, and Sam could break her wrist like bending a straw. Her other hand went to Dean’s chest, fumbling at his buttons done up halfway.

“He’s with me.” Dean looked down at her hand and then twisted on his stool, knocking her loose.

“O-o-h,” the girl noised knowingly and flashed Sam a bright, jealous smile. Her other hand slid over Dean’s shoulder, getting him in the crook of her arm and Sam wondered how far he could get that arm down her own throat, but they still needed answers and Dean wasn’t freaking out, so Sam waited.

“Yeah, so, um. Tonight’s the big night, huh? What, out there by the burn barrels?”

She nodded eagerly, then wrinkled her nose and dropped her voice in a reverential hush as her friends crowded up behind her again, the drunkest girl ragdolled face-down across the bar. “Well, tha’s where _he’ll_ come from. The, y’know… _god._ The other thing, that’ll be over in the tennis courts behind the Shady Pines.”

“R-i-i-ght. So that’s—”

“I feel _so bad_ for Amber and Tyler,” she interrupted, “but, y’know, gotta take one for the team!” Her friends cheered at that, and Sam couldn’t quite tell, but he didn’t think one of them actually jostled the girl, made her fall into Dean again. Put her hands on his thighs to catch herself. Had to catch herself because Dean didn’t. He leaned away from her, straining to keep his smile intact.

“Y-yeah. Ha. Uh, A-Amber and, um, Tyler?” Dean stuttered, stock still as the girl lurched, shuffled her feet, got in closer to him, her tits hanging out of her bra completely. Rosy nipples to match the booze blush at her cheeks and Dean would just have to turn his hand over on the bar to cup one. But he didn’t.

The girl smacked her lips and laughed, ducked down and pushed the top of her head into Dean’s chest. There was a time Sam would have pointed-and-laughed at the helpless look on Dean’s face, but now Sam saw it for what it was.

“ _Tyler_ ,” the girl screeched and clutched at Dean’s shirt, this time winning a button free. Sent it sailing off into the crowd and Dean grabbed the girl’s wrist. Didn’t make her let go, but kept her from stripping him any further. She didn’t seem deterred. Her other hand came up, shoved its way into Dean’s jacket and started trying to work that off his shoulder. “I _told him_. We _all did._ But I guess he didn’t _believe_! Says—he says—s’not _real_. Just gonna be like all the other times. Hey, _c’mon_ ,” she whined, jerking full force at Dean’s clothes, upright and straddling his right leg. Sam could see a dark spot there where she was wet and grinding on Dean.

“Alright, okay, here, look, I’ll take this off. That better?”

“ _Much_ ,” the girl purred as Dean shrugged out of his jacket.

“Okay, so what didn’t Tyler believe?”

“Well,” she started, fingers dancing over Dean’s shoulder, plucking at the seams of his shirt like picking at a scab. She leaned in close, oblivious to Dean shuddering. “Tyler wanted to _wait_. Wouldn’t do _it_ , ’cause, I don’t know, he’s obviously _stupid._ But that’s what happens!” She chimed that last bit over her shoulder, got a whoop from a couple of her friends who were fingering each other and playing steal-the-drink with anyone that got in arm’s reach.

 _Virgin?_ Dean mouthed at Sam. He nodded. Fitting.

“Ah. Okay, so I take it Amber wasn’t in the cool girl group, either. Not like you fine ladies, huh?” Dean asked.

“Ugh, _no_. Total nerd-burger. She was the _obvious_ choice. Everyone saw that coming. Why are you _dressed_?” she snapped, angry-sounding. She slapped Dean’s hands away with surprising strength and snatched the collar of his t-shirt hard enough to rip it.

“Alright, take it easy—”

“You _gotta_ ,” the girl hissed. “The _wolves_ —”

“Let her, Dean.”

Dean whipped around, almost knocking the girl to the floor, but she caught herself by jamming her fingers into the waistband of his jeans as he dragged her with him. He frowned at Sam, shook his head minutely even as the girl pulled on him, trying to lift his hips by his jeans. Sam took off his own jacket and his flannel, piling them with Dean’s on the bar behind him. He pulled the hem of Dean’s shirt up, but Dean wouldn’t lift his arms.

“Trust me,” Sam said into Dean’s ear, leaning forward. It hurt to move with his dick huge and rolled weird in his pants, but Sam had done his research. “She’s right. They’ll come after us if we don’t.”

They were being watched. The bar was full of shadowy corners and dark booths, but Sam could see them. Scattered throughout the revelers were the priests and priestesses of this cult and their duty was to encourage the masses to shed their inhibitions, to celebrate with orgastic enthusiasm the coming of their patron gods, and anyone who opposed or denied this excess and devotion would be part of the ritual sacrifice. It was easy enough to spot them with their crimson robes and cloven hooves.

Sam blinked. No, they were human, and as undressed as anyone else.

He pulled at Dean’s shirt again and this time Dean relented. Raised his arms and let Sam and the girl strip him.

The girl cooed as Dean was revealed to her, more of a drunken hindrance to it happening than anything, but she followed Sam’s wordless command and turned to grab a half-full bottle of Jack off the counter. She thrust it at Sam, almost hitting Dean in the face with it in her eagerness to get both her hands on his skin.

“There’s another ritual in three days, isn’t there?” Sam asked, spinning Dean around. He stood, pushed his cock against Dean from behind. Dean dropped his back head onto Sam’s chest, eyes squeezed shut like he was in pain when the girl put her lips on him. Neck first, then shoulder, moving down.

“Mm-hm,” was the happy-hum reply. “Libby gets liberated!” She rolled big brown eyes up at Sam, opened her mouth wide to drag her tongue across Dean’s pectoral, and Dean almost came out of his seat when she licked his nipple.

“Sam!”

“Open—here, drink—”

Dean started to say no, but the bottle was dug into his lip and Sam’s hand was under his chin, forcing his head back.

“Don’t swallow,” Sam said, curling that hand around Dean’s throat lightly, pouring carefully. He spilled some on purpose, gave the dumb girl something to lap at as whisky pooled in the hollow of Dean’s collarbone. He nudged Dean’s head forward again, cheeks puffed with alcohol, and Sam had to cover Dean’s mouth when the girl lunged up to kiss him. Sticky lips brushed over Sam’s fingers and she even pulled at them with her teeth. He just tightened his hold.

Dean sniffed loudly and faked trying to get free, but Sam could feel it: that softening of Dean doing what he was told. Breathing fast but steady, pushing back on Sam to balance himself, to feel something besides this girl’s almost frantic mouth and fingers. Still jerking at Dean’s pants. Sam denied her that, too. Let her do the hard work, but when she had the buttons popped, he beat her to the prize. Shoved his hand down the front of Dean’s jeans and cupped his balls and dick. Squeezed just because he could, just to feel Dean inhale even as he spread his legs.

“Yeah,” the girl moaned, one little hand gripping Sam’s wrist, her other rubbing unawares at the scars on Dean’s shoulder.

Just because he could, Sam wiggled his hand back and down into Dean’s underwear. Got a soft, damp handful that he crushed when Dean finally started to freak out as the girl shimmied in closer, got one leg hooked up over Dean’s lap.

“No,” Sam whispered in Dean’s ear. “Swallow.”

Dean gulped the maybe-cup of whisky in his mouth, wet Sam’s palm with what was forced from his lips. Empty, drugged up, sick, it would hit him hard. Sam needed to get them out of here. He swept the room again, and yeah, the tension Sam had sensed before had abated. They were no longer being watched, or at least not so carefully.

Sam reached around Dean and pulled the girl up by her hair, making Dean gasp as she tried to bite down to keep her place. “Do you know a guy called Cochran?” he asked when he had her face to face. She shook her head, then giggled and tried to rub her head against Sam’s hand. He gave her a little shake. “He would have shown up earlier this week. Maybe looking for missing people?”

“N-no. Ow, god. He’s prob’ly puppy chow. Usually only one a year, but it’s been two a night since last Sunday. Gotta keep the pillar wet. Or, like, _soft._ I don’t know! Ow,” she whined again and there were soft brown curls in Sam’s fingers when he let her go. She barnacled right back onto Dean, but Sam knew enough now to figure out what was going on, and Dean latched onto Sam’s arms when they came around his ribs and he even kicked at the girl when Sam lifted him up and into his lap. She made an unhappy sound, her chin wet with spit and her hands grabbing for Dean, but Sam shoved Dean’s stool at her with his heel. She finally seemed to get the hint. Dodged the stool as it fell at her, stumbled back, red-lipped and pouting as she was seamlessly absorbed by her circle of drunken friends.

Dean was breathing hard, sweating, and he just hung still for a moment, let Sam have all his weight. Then he tilted his face up towards Sam’s.

“You okay?” Sam asked, smoothing his hand down Dean’s belly. Back into his pants.

“Yeah— _no_.”

“She was pretty small to be scary,” Sam teased, but Dean was scared. Was tight in Sam’s palm still, but arched up when Sam’s fingers dug in deep, trying for his asshole. They had to keep blending in. Sam snagged the whisky and held it to Dean’s face again, and Dean even nudged it up with the back of his hand to get a better pour into his mouth.

“’S not _her_. It’s—everyone,” he panted around the fumes.

On the other side of the bar, a semi-circle of PTA goers were getting their genitals licked in turns by a kneeling boy, skinny and young with fist-crushed silk flowers in his hair.

“I know, Dean. I’m sorry. Let’s go.”

He resisted putting his warm hand to his face so he could smell Dean, promised himself that later, later he’d get his whole face up between Dean’s legs until the stench of this bar wasn’t even a memory and Dean’s skin would taste of Sam’s mouth and sweat and nothing like the sickly-sweet tongue of that little town whore now bent over the bar with more hands than holes to be filled on her. She turned to look at them leave, eyes glazed, and Sam would have happily crushed her fucking head under his boot just to make her stop.

Sam used the still-unbuttoned front of Dean’s jeans to pull him along.

“Can I—” Dean started.

“No. Listen, Dean, this whole town is ready to rip anyone to shreds who isn’t celebrating the ritual. Do you get it?”

“Yeah. Yeah, okay. How do we stop this? What, she said, um, said… Tonight. They’re raising—who, now?” Dean stumbled and Sam slowed down, got an arm around Dean’s waist to hold him up, keep him warm. To claim him. The further into town they got the more people were out in the streets and at first glance, they looked like they were tearing each other apart. Pulling passers-by into gang fights, but the sounds were wrong. Moans, whines, cheers and loud, ecstatic cries. Group sex, orgies, couples, everywhere Sam looked people were fucking, or trying to, barely waiting their turn to run trains on each other.

“Kids,” Dean said.

“Huh?”

“No _kids_. Like—” Dean waved his hand at waist level.

“Yeah, right? Maybe the town has them holed up somewhere. We need to find somewhere to go, too. Everything’s closed, or looks like a porn shoot.”

“Doesn’t look like anyone’s at home,” Dean pointed out.

That was true. And the way the bar had smelled inside hadn’t suggested people were even going home for a quick shower at this point.

“Up there,” Dean said.

A hillside maybe six blocks away, dotted with middle-class housing. Very few with any lights on. Sam turned the corner to get them there and walked right into a group of naked, wine-drunk revelers.

Dean was ripped from his arms before either could react or resist. Hands everywhere on Sam, pushing and pulling him, spinning him in their midst, making him lose track of where his brother had last been. Vacant faces with open mouths breathed sour breath in his face, and there, there was Dean, his jeans around his thighs and his arms pulled wide by three people—that’s what it was taking to hold onto him as he struggled—while a thick-thighed and tattooed woman tried to fit her saggy and dirty-tipped strap-on dildo between Dean’s legs from behind.

Sam felt pain: his back, then his belly. Someone was running their nails over him as he was spun, and someone was yelling. Close, and loud. No. It was howling. _That_ howling. He’d heard it before, coming from Dean and in his own dreams. _Wolves_ , the girl in the bar had said. They were sicced on people who wouldn’t participate in this, who wouldn’t sacrifice their energy to raising the gods.

“Dean!” he yelled. Stomped like he could put on the brakes, leaned back, yanked himself out of the circle with enough force he knocked two people down. Fell, skidding on his ass and tearing his palms on the asphalt. Dean was down too, on his knees, and the woman was crouched, aiming, while the others held his wrists in front of him and his face was almost on the ground. Eyes on Sam.

Sam flung himself forward, scrambling like an animal on bloody hands. He barreled into them, knocking Dean free. Curled around him as people screamed and jeered and raged. More claws at his back, his hair pulled and— _enough_.

He thought the word. Saw it take form in his head, something black and granite-heavy. Felt it reverberate through him and the word itself trembled, coming apart, and he had to get these people away from them.

_Enough._

The feeling exploded from him, vaporising everything else in his mind.

Silence; so quiet that when he drew his next breath he heard it catch over his tongue. Heard the _scritch_ of pebbles beneath Dean. Sam lifted his head and looked around. The revelers were still there. A few on the ground nearby, blinking, dazed. Most standing, swaying, looking at Sam on top of his brother, or at each other. One was bleeding from the nose. He sniffed, another loud sound, and that seemed to wake the others up. A laugh, an answering hesitant giggle. Hands reaching out for each other, helping those fallen from the ground. Reaching for Sam and Dean, too, but Sam ignored them. Wrapped his arms tighter around Dean and hunched his hips against him. Dean was on his side mostly, twisted so his left shoulder and back were touching the road. He looked up at Sam, as vacant-eyed as the rest of them, but for different reasons. He was hurt, drunk, and outnumbered, but he had Sam, and Sam wasn’t going to let anything bad happen to him.

Sam whispered his name and Dean nodded, moved his leg so Sam could reach between them and get his pants open. He was hard. Pretty much had been since they’d passed the Welcome to Blue Springs sign, and if they didn’t do this right here, now, in front of strangers, they might not be able to leave. Sam spit into his hand, wet his dick with it, and Dean hiked his leg more to let Sam into him.

“ _Fuck_. Oh fuck. Sam—” Dean dug his nails into Sam’s arms, bounced his own head off the asphalt, and someone whistled above them. Cheered, laughed louder, and bodies fell around them as if they had inspired others to copulate. The cold didn’t matter, the paper-thin possum corpse under the knees of that tattooed woman shoving her strap-on into a grandmother didn’t matter. And none of them mattered to the slick-thighed locals who ran by the little cluster because they were—all of them—doing as the gods’ bid.

Dean was limp except for his fingers gripping Sam, white-knuckled. Sam wanted to get Dean up off the cold ground, but he felt so good. And the harder he fucked, the softer Dean got and the deeper Sam slipped into him, until he had his forehead pressed to Dean’s temple and Dean was clamped down around the very base of Sam’s cock. Too dry, being yanked on, almost turned inside out, and Dean whined, shrill. Sam kissed him, tried to distract him, to keep his discomfort from attracting attention. He tasted whisky-sick and just squeezed Sam tighter.

Maybe it was the angle. He scooped Dean up. It shouldn’t have been so easy, nor Dean so thin. Sam couldn’t tell if there was blood on his dick or if he was just angry-red from the friction. Kneed them forward a few feet, against an Accord. Tore at Dean’s pants and left them in a heap with his shoes. Got his hands under Dean’s thighs, Dean’s back against the car, and dropped him down over his dick again. Had something to push against so Dean wasn’t getting road rash, or having to strain to hold still.

“Better?” he asked. Dean’s eyes darted around, watching those other people. He didn’t reply, but tilted his head, offered Sam his neck. He liked it when Sam bit him there, baby-brother vampire. If he’d been a girl, it would get his pussy soaking. Sam wouldn’t have to touch him anywhere else to get him slicked up and ready. He heard Dean’s breathy little pant, felt him relax as teeth and tongue touched him. He spread Dean’s legs like he was a girl, fucking like Jess had taught him, so his pelvis was grinding where a clit would be, crushing Dean’s balls between them and Dean just rolled his hips for more contact. Put his arms on Sam’s shoulders and his heels into the small of Sam’s back.

There were rocks digging into Sam’s knees and his zipper biting into his groin, but it didn’t matter. Dean liked the way they were fucking now, and the sounds around them were happy again, excited, unconcerned. Sam slowed down, glanced over his shoulder, up at the empty houses. He could get them there.

Sam pulled back, holding Dean by the hips to keep him from hitting the ground, but Dean locked his ankles and hauled Sam against him. “N-no! No, god, Sam, keep going. Come in me.”

“Dean—”

“Sam, please.” Dean bucked, setting his shoulders against the car for leverage. Churned his hips and Sam groaned, escape plan forgotten. Dean was tight, all his weight on Sam’s cock. Sam looked down between them, half-expecting to be able to see himself in Dean’s flat belly. Wanted to see a swell there, see Dean soft and curved like a girl, filled up, pregnant—

“Fuck, do it, fuck me—”

Sam’s orgasm was soft, slow, something drawn out and sweetly painful. Made him feel lightheaded, his skin tingle, raised goosebumps all over, and Dean was petting him. Running his hands over Sam’s chest, up under his torn shirt. Rubbing his cheek on Sam’s, meaningless noises in his throat.

“C’mon, Dean. Hey,” Sam whispered, untangling himself from Dean. “Up, come _on._ ” Urgently, but quietly, and no one else seemed to notice when they both were finally standing. Sam snagged Dean’s jeans and helped him back into them, stumbling away from the group as he did. Grabbed their bags and Dean’s boots. Dean took Sam’s hand again, a dazed smile on his face, and trotted along next to Sam as they headed farther into the neighborhood.


	26. Chapter 26

 

Sam picked the lock of a big house two-thirds the way up an east-facing hill. If the pile of newspapers in the driveway was any indication, the homeowners were either on vacation or had been at the downtown orgy for days.

“Fancy,” Dean mused, then went down on his ass just inside the door, drunk and dizzy. Sam had half-carried him here, but the way their arms were slung around each other had passed for intimacy and Dean had been happy to prove it with kisses whenever they’d run across other revelers.

“I can see you livin’ here,” Dean said from the floor, leaning back on his hands, watching Sam dart around, double-checking that the house was empty.

“What?”

“White picket fence, two stories. Hot tub out back. Eh?” He wiggled his eyebrows at Sam. “Can’t tell me you never wished for something like this.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Sam stopped in front of him. “It’s a little late for that, isn’t it?”

“Whaddya mean? C’mon, if you had one wish, this wouldn’t be it?”

Sam looked down at his bare-chested, scraped up, smiling brother. He sniffed and shook his head. “No. It wouldn’t be.”

“Alright, well, what, then? Hm? What would Sammy wish for?”

 _To go back in time and save you from Hell. To keep you from hurting ever again._ He reached out and Dean gave him his hand so Sam could pull him to his feet. He kept ahold of Dean’s wrist and said, “Stop what’s coming. Stop the Apocalypse. I’d wish for Lilith’s head on a plate.”

Something flashed across Dean’s face, cracked the adoring way he’d been looking at Sam since they’d entered this fucked up town, but Sam didn’t ask what it was. It didn’t matter. He was going to have what he’d wished for.

“Go get cleaned up,” he said, thumbing over the bruises that dark-eyed little whore had left on Dean’s chest.

He followed Dean upstairs, watching the wet spot on the back of his jeans, come and maybe blood seeping through the seam. Dean was slow-moving, clutching the polished rail. Nearly tripped casting a coy glance over his shoulder at Sam.

The master bedroom drew them in with its huge double-doors, and they went different directions across the deep blue shag carpet: Dean towards the attached bathroom and Sam to the bay windows. A nice view down into the center of town, just like Sam had hoped when he’d spotted the house.

Sam could see the intersection with the burning barrels, hooded figures moving between them. Townspeople seemed to be congregating, masses of writhing bodies in clusters near each barrel.

Not everyone was there, and Sam moved into the freesia-scented, glitter-dusted nightmare of a teenage girl’s room to check out what could be seen from those windows. He heard the water splashing in the tub and Dean rummaging through the cabinets, but instead of checking on him, stopping him, Sam stood on his toes and tried to peer over the treetops, down past the white roof of what he guessed was an old folks’ home. About a third of the green turfed tennis court was visible on the far side, a tall metal fence around it. Something moved quickly across the green into the shadow of the other building. Something big, dark, down on all fours.

“Dude, you gotta check out the tub. Could fit like, four people.” Dean came up behind him, peeked over his shoulder. “What’s down there?”

It was a thoughtless decision not to tell Dean. They still didn’t know enough. Maybe what Sam had seen, what the girl had called wolves, weren’t really wolves at all. Maybe they were werewolves or shapeshifters, skinwalkers, maybe hellhounds. Maybe Dean wouldn’t react well to even just a regular dog. He’d want to go down there and save the sacrificial virgins—and they _should_. They should. But they couldn’t fight an entire town. Couldn’t kill everyone _and_ deal with unclassified beasts. They needed to know more first.

Sam shrugged and turned. Dean was poking at junk on a small nightstand, flipping piled clothes around with his toes. He’d been right there when the girl had mentioned the tennis court and the wolves, but he was acting like he didn’t remember, hadn’t heard. Sam said, “I’m going to try the wi-fi.”

“’Kay.”

He had to take the computer downstairs and find the router, needing the number on the bottom, then he hacked the password.

The information he’d come to the town with was double-checked and proven. Liber and Libera, ancient Roman deities. Gods of wine, inebriation, and freedom, they were honoured right before spring to ensure a good growing season. They were sacrificed to, not only with dancing and drinking and orgies—a sacrifice of energy, basically—but anyone who opposed the cult of celebration was ritually murdered in the name of the gods. The Liberalia had gotten so out of hand that it had been banished by the Romans, probably because their own ruling class were not immune to its draw.

And that draw was powerful. Like an unrelenting wind sucking at the edges of Sam’s mind, dragging base urges and depravity to the surface. It was obviously impacting Dean, breaking down his usual boundaries, making him clingy and sweet and welcoming—more so than he already was, lately.

Sam sighed, frustrated. He had all the crucial details except one: how to kill these gods. He also could not find anything about wolves in this area. Red wolves were almost extinct, and were small, subsisting on rabbits and mice. Unlikely they would attack a human.

He called Bobby. Didn’t tell him anything more than what he was certain of—and definitely not what had happened to them. The old man had nothing for Sam solution-wise but said he’d keep searching.

“That cock-rock they got in the middle of town, that’s where the god will likely pop up,” Bobby said. “But, Sam, they’re gonna kill some innocent kids just ’cause they ain’t puttin’ out.”

“Yeah, I know.” He said goodbye and hung up before Bobby got around to asking how they were. _Oh, you know, fending off rapists. Wanting to murder everyone for no good reason. Thinking about getting Dean pregnant. Everything’s normal._

Sam couldn’t hear the water running anymore as he topped the stairs, and he thought he might even join Dean in the bath if he’d really filled it up, but Dean was on the floor when Sam entered the bedroom. On his knees, left arm across his chest, wrist cuffed to right elbow, right arm around his back, right wrist cuffed to left elbow. Sam’s first instinct was to get pissed. Dean couldn’t defend himself trussed up like that. He frowned and moved towards Dean in a way that made him flinch. Made his heavily lined eyes widen. Sam stopped.

“Dean.”

Black eyeliner, lashes the same colour and fanned out. Pale foundation covered most of his bruises and all his freckles, making him China-doll smooth. Blush dabbed lightly and pink over his shaved cheeks. His open mouth was glossed, just a shade darker than his lips, and his hair was slicked back, parted on the left, and somehow none of it made him look particularly feminine. The tight black skirt did that. Stretched over his thighs, clinging to his ass, it barely covered what was between his legs. He had on a girl’s tank top too, spaghetti straps biting into his shoulders. Mint green and previously worn—Sam could smell the ‘powder fresh’ deodorant and the fake-strawberry perfume clinging to it when he crouched down in front of him.

“Dean… You look…”

Mouth still open, and Sam knew that if he’d brought the ball gag, Dean would have dug it out of the bag and put it on. It would have looked good, but Sam liked Dean’s mouth the way it was. Just open, his tongue tip wet and shiny against his lower teeth. Sam reached out, touched a finger to Dean’s tacky lower lip. Hooked it over those teeth and pried Dean’s mouth wider. Flashed suddenly on—spider gags, he thought they were called. Like a dental appliance, a metal spreader that would keep Dean as wide as Sam wanted. Enough to get his dick in his brother’s mouth and fuck it without feeling teeth or lips, just a breath-warm, spit-wet hole around him.

He swirled a fingertip over Dean’s tongue, then added another. Tugged his head down by his jaw until Dean had to look up from under his dark, press-curled lashes to see. Blinked when saliva spilled from his mouth and onto his knees.

“Y’know it’s this place, right?” Sam murmured. “Says it right in the lore. ‘Like a plague, it urges commoners, women, the morally weak, and effeminate males to break all social and sexual boundaries.’ Do you know what effeminate means?”

Sam felt Dean try to nod, but he informed him anyway. “A man who has traits more commonly associated with women. The lore also says those with _leuitas animi_ , ‘fickle or uneducated minds’, are more susceptible.” Sam curled his thumb into the softness under Dean’s chin. Pinched, then pulled down hard. Dean’s jaw popped and he tried to struggle but Sam held his head still. Dean whimpered, twisting his shoulders, then settled, eyes closed. “Is that what you are, Dean? A stupid little slut? Like that girl in the bar?”

A tiny dip of his head, all he was capable of, and his tongue flicked at Sam’s fingertips.

“Yeah? You wanna be a slut for me? Dress up just so I can rip it off of you? Make yourself pretty so I can ruin it? Want me to treat you like that, huh?”

A noise, then the bottom of Dean’s tongue on him, hot and slick.

“Tell me,” Sam said, withdrawing his hand, using soaked fingertips to lift Dean’s face up. “Say it to me.”

Dean said, “Fuck me,” immediately. Swallowed, rubbed shimmery lips together, then let them fall slack, a drugged pout with matching glassy eyes. “Fuck my mouth. Fuck my ass. Do whatever you want. I’m—I’m wet. For you—you make me wet. Will you—”

Sam slapped him hard enough he couldn’t keep his balance. Fell over, breath lost as he hit the floor. Groaned and squeezed his eyes shut, bent his knees up to untwist his hips and that’s when Sam saw the grey shine between Dean’s legs.

Sam grabbed the hem of Dean’s skirt and yanked it up in the front. He was wearing some teenage girl’s underwear. Satin, lace around the legs, too small and stretched over his hip bones. His dick was soft but still almost too much for the panties to hold in, his balls heavy and lifting the elastic slightly away from his skin. Dean gasped quietly when Sam cupped a hand over him, lifted his head from the floor to look. Opened his legs a little more and he _was_ wet. Sam could see how the fabric was dark down where it was covering Dean’s hole. Felt gel of some kind seeping through, turning the grey to black when he touched it.

“See? ’M wet. Want you.”

“I see that.” Sam put his hands to Dean’s knees and shoved them wide, forcing Dean onto his back and that arm bent behind him. Heard the handcuffs rattle as Dean squirmed for a better position, but Sam wasn’t going to let him have it. Smacked an open palm down over Dean’s cock, packed so pretty in stolen panties, then hauled Dean up onto his ass while he was still retch-gasping from the pain. Caught one of those bound arms and got him back on his knees.

“You are stupid,” he said, standing. “Don’t you know what you’re doing? It’s all part of the ritual. Giving energy to raise the gods. Jesus, Dean, I guess I was wrong. You are a dumb whore, aren’t you?”

“ _Yours_ ,” Dean hissed, teary-eyed, jaw clenched.

“Goddamned right you’re mine.”

So they were both being stupid, but there wasn’t any way Sam could _not_ do this. Get his jeans open. Dick out and into Dean’s mouth and Dean sucked him down like candy and Sam wished he’d have kissed him first. Wondered if that lip gloss was flavoured or just expensive, and if Dean could taste his own ass on Sam’s dick still. Dean buried his nose in Sam’s pubic hair, doing what he could almost never do unless Sam was only half-hard. Swallowed whatever he was tasting, trying to get Sam thick in his throat. It was working, and Dean didn’t pull back. Choked, then tilted his head to get even closer, and Sam helped. Put both hands on Dean’s head and pulled him in. Bucked into Dean’s mouth, felt himself bunched up almost painfully at the back of Dean’s throat, then all at once the resistance was gone and he slid in deep.

Dean coughed—tried to, hacked wet and messy over his lips and his whole body stiffened.

“Keep your fucking mouth open wide. _Wide_ , Dean,” Sam demanded when molars scraped along his dick. Another cough, and Sam couldn’t see Dean’s expression when he looked down, his face pressed hard into Sam’s belly, so Sam just closed his eyes and fucked Dean like that. Hands clamped on his head, hips jerking, he tried to wreck Dean’s throat. Heard Dean gagging and gasping slobbery breaths when he could, whining as if he couldn’t help it.

Dean was a mess when Sam got a grip on his hair and finally dragged him off his dick. Eyeliner smeared and mascara running with his tears. Mouth and chin and neck soaked with thick, sticky drool churned up out of him.

“So fucking _pretty_. God. Let me see that ass, stick it out.” And yeah, he knew how to talk that way. Had watched enough of Dean’s uncleared porn history over the years to figure it out. _Never_ talked to Jess like that: she’d have punched him. Dean just spread his knees and arched his back, raccoon-eyes red and his cheeks black-striped. “Good girl,” Sam hummed. “You like getting face-fucked, huh?” He nudged Dean’s balls with his boot and that was all those stretched-out panties could take. Dean’s cock spilled over the top, pulled them down. “Aw, little clit’s all hard,” he teased. Dean glared up at him, natural blush much darker than what he’d put on, but his mouth was still open, ready. “Try to come for me while I fuck you. I’ll put it in your ass if you do.”

It was harder to get his cock all the way down Dean’s throat this time, but he persisted, even when Dean wrenched back and vomited a little. Just viscous bile, but Dean’s eyes ran like it burned bad. It dripped all down his tank top and clung to his chin, but Sam got a fistful of hair and stuffed himself right back into Dean’s mouth. “Come on, Dean, take it.”

He tried to, and Sam knew it hurt, could feel Dean’s throat squeezing around him and his body heaving, trying not to puke again, trying to breathe, trying desperately to come. Rolling his hips against nothing so his dick slapped against his stomach, those panties pinched around his balls, elastic biting into him.

“Fuck it. Get off,” Sam growled, and kneed Dean in the chest. Knocked him onto his back again. “Look at you. Like something found behind a back-alley dumpster.”

Dean lifted his puke-sticky chin defiantly. Raised his hips and tried to take pressure off his arm, but that just showed off his destroyed panties, loose and wet with his cock poking out of the top. Sam grabbed Dean’s ankles and pulled his legs straight. Straddled him, setting his weight right over Dean’s dick like it wasn’t there. Dean swore and Sam slapped him again, then yanked the tank top up so he could get at Dean’s nipples. Pinched and twisted them until they were scarlet and peaked, teasing Dean about his little-girl tits the whole time.

Dean was spit-soaked, his makeup streaked, skin splotchy where the foundation was rubbed away. Clothes stretched and ruined, his hands dark from the cuffs cutting off circulation. Looked degraded and sloppy, and Sam wasn’t done. He knew this was just going to make the magic they were supposed to be fighting stronger, but it felt _so good_ to be giving Dean what he obviously wanted. The way he was moving, how he never resisted Sam, let himself be rolled onto his chest and gave himself rug burn dragging his knees up and wide when Sam got behind him—he was in his place.

Sam stroked his thumbs across the grey satin covering Dean’s hole. Prodded deep, felt it give to the pressure, and he was so fucking wet. Sam sniffed his fingers. Smelled blood and come and that deep, dirty _Dean_ scent that made his mouth water. Something else, like aloe vera gel; Dean must’ve emptied a bottle of it into himself. Sam poked at him again, pushed the material into his brother and Dean moaned. Sam yanked at the panties, broke the elastic at the hips, and the sound Dean made then was almost sad.

“Don’t worry, I’ll get you more if want. Here, you can even keep these.” Sam used two fingers to stuff the satin into Dean’s ass. One, two, three pushes of his long fingers and half the underwear was inside him. Sam wrapped his fingers in a little more of it and shoved them in. Wiggled around, felt the heat and gel bleed through the satin, making it cling as he worked his fingers against Dean’s prostate, stroked him through the slick cloth.

“Oh my god. _Fuck._ ” Dean put his forehead to the floor and tried to push himself up, back, onto Sam.

“That’s it, baby girl, gonna come for me finally?”

“Yes, fuck _yes_.”

Ten seconds later Dean’s thighs flexed, his skin pebbled up, and he made some hysterical sound into the carpet as he came inside the hiked-up mini skirt. Sam said nothing, just put his dick to Dean’s pulsing hole and pushed, dragging the rest of the panties in with him. Would have lost them, but he snagged a tattered edge between thumb and forefinger, holding on as he started fucking Dean. The first few thrusts pulled the material in and out, but eventually it wadded up and stayed in. Sam could feel it along the left side of his dick, wrinkled and squishing and he wondered if it’d give him friction burn and decided it would be worth it.

“Like that? Fuckin’ bitch. Slut. Come on, hold _still_.” Dean couldn’t, and Sam knew it, but he didn’t bother helping. Let Dean strain to keep from being slammed across the carpet without his arms free. “Like those panties inside your cunt, huh? I want you to start wearing them all the time. Stuff them in you when they’re dirty. Come on them and make you lick them clean. Make you jerk off in them and then shove them in you. You want that?”

“Y-yeah. Yes. Yes yes—”

“Fuck. I wanna come in your mouth—”

Dean went over easily and opened wide, sucked at the head of Sam’s cock when he angled it down. Put his tongue out and kept his eyes open as come jetted over his face. Some of it went in his mouth, most of it on his cheek and chin and Sam sat on his heels, panting, and watched it drip down into Dean’s hair and along his neck.

The panties were still in Dean’s ass, a little tail between his legs, and he winced when Sam reached down and slowly pulled them out. Streaked with blood and otherwise filthy and soaked, Dean tried to dodge them but Sam put a palm to his forehead, held him still while he used them to wipe up the come.

“Open,” he said and lowered them carefully into Dean’s mouth. Closed it with his knuckles under Dean’s chin, then kissed his lips. “Let’s get you clean.”

Dean was shaky on his feet, so Sam caught his arm and cop-hauled him into the bathroom. The tub was indeed enormous, and very full and still steaming. The makeup he’d used was on the counter, the bottle of aloe tipped over and leaking on the marble. The lights around the mirror were soft on Dean’s bruises and scrapes, and Sam caught him glancing at his reflection. He turned Dean by the hips to face the mirror. Put a stretched-out tank top strap back on Dean’s shoulder, straightened his come-sticky skirt over his thighs. Cupped his chin again and lifted his face up.

“I like this, Dean. Like doing this shit to you, you know that, right? You said I don’t have to, but _I want to_. We can do whatever we want with each other. Is that what you want, too?”

Dean nodded in Sam’s hand, his mouth full.

Sam smiled at him in the mirror. Kissed his neck, his shoulder. Made Dean stagger when he put both hands on the tank top and ripped it down the back, then yanked it from Dean’s body. Tugged the skirt off and Dean stepped out of it, then wiggled his fingers at Sam, wanting to be free of the cuffs too. Gave Sam a distraught look over his shoulder when Sam spun him towards the bath.

So easy without Dean’s arms to balance himself, Sam forced him to his knees and forward over the water. Dean tried to fight, but Sam held his head under. Dean tensed, resisting at first, then he relaxed. Trying to wait Sam out. Maybe a minute, then he struggled again when Sam got behind him as if he knew Sam just wanted to feel him like they were fucking when he needed to breathe. Knew that Sam was going to push him that far.

He did, of course he did, holding Dean’s head in the water until Dean was scratching him with the hand locked around his back, clawing through Sam’s shirt. Banging knees against the tub and trying to twist free. Squealing: Sam could hear it, muffled by the water and the panties still in his mouth. When Sam lifted him, it turned into a sob, then just vowels when Sam shoved him into the water again. Held him down as long as he could. Longer than he should.

Dean wheezed the fourth time Sam let him breathe, tried to throw himself sideways, was begging under his dirty gag, then went limp when Sam didn’t relent. Played dead, and Sam was only a tiny bit worried that last time. Could feel Dean’s heart beating wildly when he leaned his chest against Dean’s back, but he allowed him a longer recovery time, after. Used his hair to haul him up, let him hang from it while Dean blew water and snot from his nose and blinked, slow and tired, at Sam.

“Still not clean,” Sam stated before flipping Dean into the tub by an arm and a leg, soaking himself and the floor in the process. Didn’t help Dean struggle to the surface, and when he finally came up it was only to have Sam slap his wet t-shirt over his face. Dean froze, and Sam wondered if they were thinking the same thing. Remembering. Dean hadn’t _seen_ that girl Anna being waterboarded but he surely knew it by sound, understood what was happening even behind his mask.

Sam put his hands to Dean’s face. Pulled the t-shirt tight to see Dean’s features through it. Flattened his hands over Dean’s cheeks and _scrubbed_. Rubbed hard at his lips and eyes and cheeks to get every last trace of makeup off of him. Took the shirt away only to soak it in the tub and lay it carefully right back over his face. Got a handful of it behind Dean’s head and reached for the tap. The shower head was detachable and Sam knocked it free without standing. Lifted it out of the water and sprayed Dean’s face with it. Probably strangled him too, using the t-shirt as a leash, but he wanted something and Dean had said he could have it.

Panic.

It took a little bit longer than Sam expected, but when it hit, it was everything Sam needed to see. Kicking, thrashing, the t-shirt sucked into Dean’s full mouth, bitten at. He tried to get the panties out and couldn’t, just got them soaked for his trouble and he choked then, gagged more. Cried out and even tried to drag himself under to get away from the hot spray on his face. He _screamed_ , used the last of his air to wail, and Sam was hard again. Let go of Dean all at once, and he did go under.

Sam kept his hand in the water, ready to fish him out, but waiting to see if he needed to. Jerked himself off with his other hand as Dean barely heeled himself up, weak and shaking his head, trying to get the last of the clinging shirt away from his nose and mouth. Had to do it himself: Sam only watched. When Sam didn’t stop Dean from spitting the underwear out, they sank into the water, settled on the bottom somewhere with the shirt. He coughed, water rattling in his throat, then said, “No, don’t—” when Sam reached for him, but Sam only pulled him close to kiss him. Barely pressed his lips to Dean’s when his second orgasm hit. He came against the cold porcelain, jerked helplessly on Dean and almost pushed him underwater again.

Sam crawled into the tub with his brother. The handcuff keys were on the counter next to the gel, but Dean could barely use his arms once they were free, so Sam did what he was used to doing by now and washed him. Helped him stand, dried him off, walked him to the big bed. Laid him back, then wrapped his hands around Dean’s sore throat and squeezed, right where it would make Dean reel off into unconsciousness. Let go just to have him come back babbling and quivering.

“Do you love me?” Sam asked. Dean’s ‘fuck, fuck, _Sam_ ,’ was a good enough answer. “You _promise_? Forever?” More of the same, but Sam choked him anyway until he was shuddering beneath him, shaking, eyes rolling, not fighting at all.

Sam let him be finally, then picked up his discarded laptop and sat on the bed next to Dean as the cloud-shrouded sun began to go down. Dean rolled over and coughed wetly a couple times before falling asleep, but Sam stayed awake. He wasn’t really sleeping much anyway, lately, and he wanted to keep an eye on Dean in case he’d breathed in more water than it seemed.


	27. Chapter 27

Sam read. Re-read. Fact-checked. No god-of-grapes killing lore anywhere. He thought back—often something associated with their power would put down a god. Could a grapevine be sharpened and stuck in the deity’s heart? What kills grapes? Frost? What, rent a dry ice machine? Maybe Ruby would know. But she’d be ticked off he was here in the first place. Sam could hear her in his head, bitching: _Why stop one Seal when you can stop them all?_ He wasn’t in the mood. He didn’t _need_ her either. He’d had so much last time he’d seen her.

Sam shivered. It wasn’t cold. The heat was on. Dean was sweating against Sam’s leg. Still, he thought he could see his own breath for a second, so he got up to check the house. Locked up, quiet. So quiet he could hear the dim sounds of a city-wide orgy. Echoing laughter and giddy shrieks. Catcalls and encouraging howls.

Wait. No. Those were real howls.

Sam dashed back into the girl’s room. There were people lined up against the chain link fence around the tennis court and Sam could just barely see past their mostly-naked backsides onto the green. He opened the window, then closed it after a few seconds.

They should have done something, but it was too late. The screams he heard weren’t drunken or ecstatic. They were horrible. The crowd stepped back. Too close to the beasts inside the fence. Maybe to avoid being spattered with blood. A body suddenly appeared, taller than the rest. No, he’d climbed the fence to escape the wolves. Naked, mouth open in a scream Sam hadn’t wanted to hear, the boy—Tyler, Sam assumed—was slender and athletic, strawberry blond, and people were grabbing the fence, trying to shake him free. He looked over his shoulder, sagged, then seemed to reluctantly climb down. Robed figures were there to welcome him. Catch his arms and steer him out of sight.

Another cloaked person was still inside the court. Sam squinted, wishing he had binoculars. It was getting darker by the second, but it looked like…some of the people had pint glasses. Bottles. Their hands cupped. The priest was spooning something into any receptacle held out and the revelers were scampering off into the dusk, whatever they were given held like a prize. After the first five left, going the same direction, Sam switched windows. Back in the master bedroom, Dean sleeping peacefully on the big bed, the midnight blue of the soft, expensive blankets making him look even more washed out than he normally did. Peaceful meant he’d taken something, probably, and Sam almost ignored what was happening outside to go and check the medicine cabinet, but given their surroundings, it was probably some commonly-prescribed sleeping aid for an overwrought white-collar housewife.

There was nothing to see from the window at first except the burning pentagram, glowing brightly as the sun faded. It took the revelers several minutes to navigate the blocks from the tennis court to downtown, but they started trickling in and were let closest to the pillar by the rest of the town already there. Walking carefully, holding their offerings steady, they came singly or in small groups. Maybe fifteen of them, making a tight inner circle around the stone. Waiting patiently compared to the stumbling haste Sam had witnessed earlier. Trailing them were two priests, Tyler between them. He was digging his heels in, resisting, flailing like a frightened calf being led to slaughter. The slaughter had already happened though, and another priest came from behind the pillar and gestured. One by one, the revelers approached the stone and poured their offering upon it. Blood, to keep the pillar wet, that whore in the bar said. _Soft._ That’s where the god would come from, Bobby reasoned.

Each person wet their side of the rock. Used hands to rub the blood from the girl the wolves had killed in the tennis court into the stone, making it burgundy to Sam’s eyes as the barrel fires were fed more offerings as well. Lamb fat and bundles of flowers made the flames lick high, and the boy was screaming again. Bloody-palmed townspeople, maybe some who were his friends, or even family, were reaching for him as he was dragged closer to the anointed rock. Touched him, slathered the blood all over him too. His face, chest, belly, cock and balls. Sam didn’t think he was screaming anymore. Seemed to sag between his captors, and the circle parted to let them up to the rock. He was tied face-first to it, wrists and ankles bound so he was splay-legged and hugging the stone.

The rest of the ritual was nothing new to Sam. Probably chanting, though he couldn’t hear. Priests waving their arms around. More burnt offerings. Tyler struggled one last time. Bright lights that had the revelers—the crowd swelled to at least ten deep, the whole town having turned out to see their god raised—covering their eyes for several seconds. Sam too. Put his hand up to block the lightning-dazzle of energy. And then nothing. Quiet; a blackness that Sam tried to peer into. Had to blink away the bright spot in his vision first. Still couldn’t see, even then. Not the pillar, or Tyler. As if a curtain had dropped around the stone, the blackness was so deep, so _heavy_ it actually made Sam uncomfortable looking at it. There was _nothing_ to see in the center of the burn-barrel pentagram. Sam held his breath unconsciously.

Ten seconds, maybe less, and then a figure stepped out of that incredible darkness. It was Tyler, smeared with blood, ropes gone from his body. He walked slowly, jerkily, widdershins around the pentagram. As he moved, the negative space seemed to dispel, shift like fog. Disappeared completely with Tyler’s third pass around the rock. No one else moved. Priests at each barrel, hands lost in their cloaks, faces lowered, hidden from their god. The crowd as still as Sam, and they all let out the same breath when Tyler suddenly raised his hand. Said something, and Sam felt lightheaded, like he’d gone over the peak of an unexpected hill. His heart began to race, and he felt himself blushing. His cock stirred with that same warmth. His balls were heavy, his palms and nipples buzzing.

Tyler— _Liber_ , for he was a god now—walked into the crowd. They coalesced around him, some following him as he slowly moved, dragging his feet as much as Tyler had done being taken to the stone. Some fell right where they were, onto each other. Clutching and kissing quickly turned to fucking, and as night edged its way over the mountain finally, Liber disappeared around a corner, the revelers who weren’t already celebrating on the ground or against walls and parked cars followed him, holding hands and flinging away any last bits of clothing as they went.

“Sammy?”

Sam turned from the window and went to his brother. Bent over and kissed him gently. Tasted brand-name mouthwash, and Dean seemed surprised at the tenderness when Sam pulled back to look at him. He’d been wrong. Dean looked amazing in the blue-black nest of the bed. Like Sam’s very own pale star. Sam thought about the resurrected god in the town below. He’d seemed like a newborn, awkward and uncoordinated, but Sam wondered what his mind was like. If it was clear. If he was searching for his goddess. What had it been like for them? Had they been separated from each other this whole time, looking forward to the miracle of their followers bringing them back together? A thousand years spent desperate and longing for each other. Another few nights would seem like an eternity to wait to be with the one you loved. Sam didn’t think he’d be able to bear it.

Dean rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes. “What time is it? I thought—something woke me up. Wait—” He sat up. “Aren’t we—what about those kids? Why did you let me sleep?”

“It’s too late, Dean. They used Tyler as a vessel for their god. We couldn’t have saved him, or the girl. There’s too many people. I don’t know what to do.”

Dean scrambled out of bed, yelling over his shoulder as he searched for their bag. “What we do is go down there and stop them! Is the Seal broken with just one god sprung so far? Do we still have a chance? There’s gotta be something—”

“There _isn’t_. I’ve been trying to find a way. We’ll just get killed by Liber and whatever he can do, or ripped apart by the town.”

Back in his dirty jeans, a clean t-shirt, and holding his boots, Dean stopped in the middle of the room and made a disgusted face at Sam. “What’s with you, huh? We’ve faced worse odds—”

“No we haven’t.”

“Well, I’m going. And I’ll figure something out along the way, just like always.”

Sam stood up as Dean perched on the edge of the bed to put his boots on. “No. You’re not going out there, Dean.”

Dean said nothing until his laces were tied, then he looked up at Sam looming over him. “We’re not doing this again,” he said. “You can’t stop me. You can’t use this—” he wiggled a finger between them “—when we’re hunting. You can’t lord over me when it comes to saving people.”

“But you can do it in the middle of the hunt, is that it? You can decide when you feel like getting fucked, no matter what’s going on?”

Dean glared at him, then closed his eyes, smoothed his expression with obvious effort. “I won’t do it again. How about that?”

“Oh my god, Dean. That’s really childish, even for you.”

But Dean was sticking to it, angry-eyed. “Did you call Bobby? What’s he got to say?”

“Yeah, I did! What, you wanna call him, make sure?”

“Should I?”

“Why are you being like this?”

Dean shoved himself off the bed and paced away. “Because,” he said, turning, jabbing a finger at Sam, “you’re letting shit slide that you shouldn’t. Because I know you’ve got something going on that you’re not telling me about. And now you’re letting people die, watching from a fucking window while you’re playing house with me. I fucked up, okay? But we had time to fix this. To _try._ ”

“Dean—”

“No! Just. Shut up. And speaking of—what about that knife, huh? Ruby’s knife. Would that work? Kill a god? I mean, they _call_ them gods, but what are they really? Do we even know? Maybe they’re some kind of demon.”

“I-I… Yeah, um, maybe. I don’t—”

“Why don’t you call Ruby and ask her, huh?”

“I’m not—” It was his turn to take a deep breath. Or maybe it was time for something else entirely. “You’re right. Maybe the knife will work. And if it doesn’t, maybe I can pull the god, or the demon if that’s what it is, out of Tyler. Maybe I should even try that first.”

“W-what? _What_? What are you talking about?”

“Dean, it’s what I just said.”

“Y-you—so, what, you can—with your psychic shit, you can…pull a demon out of someone?”

“Yeah.”

Dean lurched forward. Like he was going to attack Sam. Rocked up onto his toes and then back down. Balled up his fists. From somewhere in the town, there was an explosion. A transformer blowing. Maybe a gunshot. Neither of them flinched. Dean was staring into the space between them, his eyes half-closed and his breathing slow, careful. When he looked up at Sam finally from beneath waterproof-dark lashes, his expression was cold, cutting. “Sam,” he said, “what else can you do?”

“Dean—”

“ _What else can you_ _do_?” Dean shouted at him. Didn’t let him answer. “You told me you weren’t messing with that crap! You were lying to me? That’s what you’ve been doing this whole time, huh? Sneaking off with Ruby and getting your darkside on, is that it? What _the fuck_ , Sam?”

“I was gonna tell you—”

“ _When_?”

Sam huffed impatiently. “I’m telling you now. I can’t turn back time, okay?”

Dean scoffed. “That’s not one of your powers, I take it.”

“Come on, man, I—”

Dean put a hand up, shook his head, not even trying to hide the disgust on his face. “Save it, Sam. We’ll deal with it later. Where’s the fucking knife? In there?” he asked when Sam couldn’t help glancing at the bag on the dresser. Dean retrieved it before Sam could do anything else, and he looked at the blade in Dean’s hand. At the way Dean had it angled towards him.

“You gonna use that on me, Dean? I’m not _bad_. I can save people with what I’m doing.”

“We already save people. We exorcise demons, we send them back to Hell. What’s so great about what you’re doing? What’s so different?”

“We have to catch the demon first. Have to trap them. I don’t have to do that.”

“Neat trick. Ruby teach you that? No, you know what? I don’t want to know,” Dean spit sarcastically. He zipped the bag up and chucked it too-quick at Sam. He caught it, the butt of the sawed-off hitting him in the chin. “We’re done talking. Right now, Sam, there’s a fuck-happy god-thing out there ruining people’s lives and having random kids sacrificed in its name, and we’re gonna stop it. Keep your superpowers in your pants. We do this the good ol’ fashion way, _capisce_?”

Dean tucked the knife into his coat sleeve, lined with thick, soft leather, a built-in sheath. “Have you tested the knife?”

“Yeah. It works. It kills the host too, though.”

Dean sniffed. “Good thing they’re usually already dead.”

 _Usually_ , Sam thought. _Not always._ And he almost told Dean the rest of it. That _he_ could kill. That the knife wasn’t the best and only option for that. But he didn’t. He followed Dean’s lead and put the rest of his clothes on.

He could stop this. Stop Dean from going out there. They could get away, sneak out of this fucked up resort town in the morning hours, cut their losses. Someone else could clean up this mess, or maybe Sam could even come back on his own, do what he’d just offered and try out his powers against a god.

Dean would never forgive him. Not after what he’d just learned about Sam. He was furious as it was. And he’d broken Dean’s trust. Sam could see it in the stiffness of Dean’s shoulders, by the way he never turned his back on Sam as he gathered up the rest of their shit and stuffed it in the other bag.

“Hey. Dean?”

“The rock out there is the source of the god’s power, right? Or it’s a portal or something?”

“Y-yeah. I think so, yeah.”

“So, we need dynamite. Y’know, there’s a grenade launcher in the Impala,” Dean mused, puckering his lips thoughtfully.

“I’m not really comfortable trying to sneak all the way back across town to get it.”

Dean wrinkled his nose. “Whatever. Just so long as we keep them from crowning a prom queen, at least that’ll be one less monster we gotta deal with.”

It wasn’t a bad plan. Half a plan, anyway.

“You okay?” Sam asked as Dean hawked up something wet while taking a last-minute piss.

“I’m _fine._ Hey, there’s always dismemberment.”

“True. And salt rounds—maybe because they’re associated with growing things, salt will hurt them?”

“Good thinking. Okay, so what else? You saw it happen—is that kid possessed?”

“I guess we’ll find out,” Sam replied. He really didn’t know. It would be nice and easy if it was a mere possession, but what if the ritual had changed the boy somehow? Altered his molecular structure or whatever? If they somehow could pull Liber from him, would there be anything left of Tyler in that body?

And Sam couldn’t help wondering how was it going to be when he had to say yes to becoming the king of Hell.

That phrase shocked him, sliding so easily to the forefront.

They left the house, hurrying quietly back towards downtown. Armed this time: Sam with the shotgun, Dean with his pistol and the knife. The way was mostly deserted but the streetlamps were on, so they managed to keep distance between themselves and anyone they saw, and made good time to the roundabout and guarded pillar. They veered a couple blocks away from it, still trying to come up with the rest of their plan. Dean was the one that spotted the firehouse.

He nudged Sam. “My cousin, remember?”

Like walking slowly into the ocean, descending into the center of town again washed away most of Dean’s anger. He was side-by-side with Sam now, arms brushing, watching Sam out of the corner of one eye more than looking around. It was surprising he’d even noticed the brick building. They circled the station, looking for anyone inside or nearby before slipping through the unlocked door.

There were three fire trucks in the garage. “Can you drive one of these things?” Sam asked after pulling shades and turning on just a couple of lights.

“Not that.” Dean walked past the long hook-and-ladder rig. “You’d need to steer the back end and, no offense, that takes some training.”

Sam shrugged. “What about that?” he asked, pointing to a smaller, boxy emergency vehicle with a sturdy-looking front bumper. Dean hopped up on the tire and shaded his eyes to look through the window, then opened the driver-side door and swung inside.

“This is _perfect_. It’s got a roll cage and airbags. See if you can find the keys, Sammy.”

They drove together back towards the center of town, but Dean made Sam get out two blocks from the pillar.

“No sense in us both breaking our legs,” he said, grinning.

“I thought you said this thing has a reinforced chassis.”

“It does. But we don’t know how deep the pillar is into the ground. Since it looks like it’s on a concrete base, I’m hoping not too far.”

“Dean—”

But his brother stomped on the gas, slamming the passenger door in Sam’s face. They’d seen people milling around the altar and chose the side with the fewest. Hopefully, they’d have enough sense to get out of the way of a big red fire truck barreling at them, and Sam saw the lights on top of the truck go on as it picked up speed away from him, then heard the horn blare. It was bound to attract more attention, but they weren’t here to run people over trying to save them. Sam jogged after the truck, shotgun in his hands loaded with salt rounds.

The exhausted-looking revelers stumbling around near the pillar took a long time to notice the fire truck, but the lights and the siren garnered some attention and they began to scatter. The last to move away were the robed priests tending the fires, but finally, even they ran.

Sam didn’t want to watch but couldn’t look away as Dean rammed the truck into the pillar. He hit one of the barrels first, sent it flying up the windshield, showering embers in every direction. Then, with a deafening crack and a shrieking of metal, the bumper and a good portion of the front end of the truck wrapped itself around the stone. There was more cracking and a squealing of tires as the stone began to go over. Maybe only two feet of it was set in the concrete base, which shattered. Dean floored the rig, smoking the tires and throwing sparks as he forced it up and onto the pillar and then both it and the truck over the roundabout and across the street, not stopping until he’d piled them all up against the city hall building, pinning the stone with the truck where it would take a fuck of a lot of effort to get it out from under it and back in place.

Sam was almost to the ruined altar when robed figures reappeared. Six of them, heading towards the crashed truck and Dean inside it.

“Hey!” Sam bellowed, hefting the shotgun and firing just as three of them turned at the sound. The salt round sprayed them and dropped two immediately, groaning and rolling around, clutching at their chests. The third staggered and screamed, hands over his face, but a lost eye was better than sacrificing teenagers to a god.

That god was striding towards the truck and Sam raced to intercept, but the other two priests blocked his way. One had a pistol and Sam only avoided being shot in the face by dropping and tucking himself into a roll. He heard the gunshot just as his knees hit the ground and he came up firing before they could get a bead on him. The pistol was lost, blasted out of hand, and Sam swiveled to fire on the other priest when he was hit from the side with a piece of bent rebar. The pain was incredible and his left arm dropped, useless. He only needed one arm to fire the shotgun though and threw himself backwards, firing up at the figure standing over him. Groin, chest, face, he unloaded all but one last shell into his attacker. Salt wasn’t usually lethal—Dean was living proof of that—but it hurt like a bitch.

The priests all now in some state of agony—yelling, staggering, bleeding—Sam scrambled up. He snatched the discarded pistol from the ground and tucked it into his pants as he tried to orient himself. It was Dean’s voice that spun him around just in time to see the door of the fire truck being wrenched open—then completely off. Liber was standing a few feet away and with a finger flick, sent the heavy door sailing through the air, right towards Sam. He only had a second to dive out of the way. Two of the priests were not so quick and Sam heard bones breaking when the door slammed into them.

Sam was too far away for the shotgun to do any good, and it was like trying to sprint on marbles with all the rock and concrete bits underfoot, so, stumbling closer, he yanked the pistol—a little Barretta, he unconsciously noted—from his belt, clicked the safety off, aimed at Liber and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. He tried the slide, but it was jammed, and Liber was using the same power he’d ripped the door off with to drag Dean out of the cab of the truck. Dean tried to resist, holding onto the steering wheel, yelling obscenities, but it was useless. He was pitched across the street, halfway to Sam. Before he hit the ground, he managed to get his own gun out and was firing even as he skidded through the rubble. He found his mark several times. Sam saw the body Liber had taken over shudder and jump and felt a twinge of remorse. Hope, too, but that was dashed when the god seemed to shake off the wounds and advanced on them.

Dean was still firing, perfect aim, but it did nothing to slow Liber. Pissed him off, if anything, and he brought a hand up, slapping it down through the air at Dean. As if hit by an invisible boulder, Dean cried out and curled up around himself, bloody saliva spraying between his clenched teeth. Sam charged forward again, hoping they’d been right about the salt maybe harming the god. He fired when he was just in range and _something_ happened. Liber screeched, an inhuman sound, then he dragged back the hood hiding his face.

Sam fumbled for more rounds, his left arm not cooperating with him, but the visage revealed distracted him for a second. The blast from the shotgun had ripped open holes in the handsome, boyish face—Tyler’s face—and they were _steaming_. Sizzling even. The salt was making the skin around it wither, turn brown-then-black, flake off like crust. Liber’s eyes were wide and angry and discoloured—purple sclera, pale green irises around filmy, spider-webbed pupils, and it was only Dean groaning behind him that got Sam moving again, but the two-second pause had been enough to give Liber the upper hand. Palms out, the god _shoved_ at Sam. He felt the power slam into him, knew it was meant to send him tumbling backwards, but if that happened it would leave Dean defenseless right in front of Liber.

Sam dug in. Somehow. Imagined his body _different._ Long, strong arms—not the ones working the shotgun—ending in talons, anchoring him in place. Bent weird at the knees to take the brunt of the power, to force himself forward against it. He opened his mouth, snarling out something just as monstrous-sounding as he’d heard from Liber, and with it came this incredible _surge._ Like adrenaline, it made his hair stand on end; like a too-close flame it had him sweating instantly.

He had to protect Dean, first and foremost, and doing that would end what was happening to this town.

The gun was re-loaded, but it was dangling from Sam’s left hand. His other was up, out, fingers splayed as he threw all his power at the god. Then, as if he were hooking them into the very fabric of the entity, he slowly began to curl them into a fist. Crushing what made up Liber into _nothing_. Sam was so hot he was cold—felt icy and stiff and sick, like he’d swallowed gasoline and chased it with a lit match. He gagged, tasted blood as it came up his throat, but Liber was dying. Screaming soundlessly as he did, the air around him crackling with violet lightning, glints of it showing through the holes in his vessel’s face and chest. Sam felt something running down his own face, gritted his teeth until his jaw popped, but he had Liber. Could see the essence of the god being pulled free from the boy—wondered if Dean could see it, too. Hoped he could. Hoped his brother was watching Liber die at Sam’s hand rather than staring at Sam like he was the monster here.

All at once it was over. Sam’s hand finally closed, nails biting into his flesh with the force he was using, and in one final flare of livid colour in the air around Tyler’s body, Liber was extinguished. Tyler collapsed and did not move, the bullet holes Dean put in him finally beginning to bleed. Sam tried to draw in a deep breath. Choked, coughed and covered his mouth. His hand was soaked in blood when he looked down at it.

“Sam?”

He turned. Dean was on his feet, holding his ribs, his own lips red-stained. Took a limping step forward. Said Sam’s name again, but the look on his face kept Sam right where he was. Anger, horror, incredulity—they weren’t even the worst. It was the fear and disgust he saw that made his knees watery and his face flush with shame.

“Is it dead?” Dean asked. Sam saw him swallow hard first, choke down the revulsion, and his face hardened even more after Sam nodded. It was all he could do. When Dean reached for him, Sam knew it was just for physical support because he was hurt, either in the crash or being thrown from the fire truck. Dean took his arm, got them moving as fast as they could with Dean’s bad leg and Sam with a blinding headache searing to life above his left eye.

“I gotcha, Sammy,” Dean murmured. “Party’s over. Let’s get the fuck outta here.”


	28. Chapter 28

_I need to see u_

Sam hoped that’s what he typed. The pain behind his eye had evolved into a migraine, the kind with fractals and fuzzy edges. He was in the backseat of the Impala, on his side, his right arm wrapped around his pounding head. He had his phone in his other hand, thumbing over the buttons so slowly it was a joke, but he couldn’t see. Couldn’t think. Was going on instinct, and even that hurt.

The phone buzzed. Startled him awake though he hadn’t known he’d fallen asleep, and he dropped it. Squinted up at Dean, saw his brother turn his head slightly; Dean probably knew no one else but Ruby would be texting him. He couldn’t care. Sam felt like he’d been drained of his own blood, let alone demon. Drained, and filled back up with acid. Bones cored out and replaced with concrete. Like he’d been crushed by a glacier—smeared flat and frozen solid.

“C-cold,” he moaned. “Dean.”

He was ignored. The phone hummed again, somewhere in the footwell. Another side-eye from Dean while Sam fumbled around for it.

_WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?_

_HEY_

_Stoped a seal ithink_

_That was you? You killed an archon?_

Trying to remember what that word meant was like shoving a red-hot knife under his eyelid. He groaned. The next thing he knew, Dean was holding his head up, a water bottle pressed against his lips.

“Swallow, Sammy.”

The effort made him grit his teeth, and something was crushed between them, but he was already downing the water.

“Wha’ was..?”

“Couple barbies. Help your head.”

Sam’s phone was twitching against his ribs, but he was so uncoordinated he couldn’t get his hand on it. Dean finally snatched it up only to turn it off before pitching it onto the front seat. He made Sam drink more water, and slowly the agony began to dissipate. He was still cold, heavy-limbed, and he concentrated on breathing because otherwise he felt like he’d forget to, but eventually, he was able to sit upright. Let Dean wipe his face with a wet rag. Looked out into the snow where Dean tossed it when he was done, a crimson tatter in the otherwise unbroken white. He closed his eyes against the glare. “Dean…”

“Sam. Not now.”

It was night again when ‘now’ finally came. Sam opened his eyes and thought he might be blind for a second. The pain had been bad enough. He pushed himself up and once he was clear of the black seats of the car, he saw the familiar stuttering glow of a motel’s neon sign. He had to piss badly, but stayed where he was and took inventory of himself, passed a few minutes breathing deep and slow, consciously relaxing. When Dean returned, Sam heard him coming. Felt him first. Like the warm breath of a lover against his cheek before a kiss, he sensed his brother’s nearness. The door creaked open seconds later.

“Got a room. You okay?”

“Think so. Yeah.” He followed a limping Dean into a matchbox-sized but clean-smelling room. A small table, two chairs, a desk with the obligatory TV, and one big bed that Sam passed on the way to the bathroom. Pissed while Dean went back to the car for their bags. Dean came in a couple minutes later. He wouldn’t quite look at Sam, was pretending to focus on sorting their things, double-checking he had the Impala’s keys, rearranging the chairs to his liking.

Sam finally ended the uncomfortable silence. “Where’s my phone?”

“In the car.” Dean sighed and stopped what he was doing. Looked over at Sam, his brow furrowed. “Sam, what the fuck?”

His first instinct was to lie. Then, in no particular order: deny, walk-out, fight, blame, distract. He settled on playing stupid. “What do you mean?”

Dean seemed really familiar with that one. Rolled his eyes. “Okay. Okay! Should we like, make a list?”

“Dean—”

“You said you weren’t using your freaky-deaky powers. Then you say you are. I tell you not to and you do it anyway. You tell me nothing is going on with Ruby, but you got one zillion calls from her—”

“Dean!”

He waved his hand at Sam’s indignant outburst. “Fuck, whatever. I looked at your phone, yeah. Sue me. What else are you hiding, huh? Sammy, you gotta be straight with me, man. Tell me what the fuck is going on. And if you lie to me, I swear, I will punch you right in your fucking face.”

He knew better than to scoff. He could probably kill Dean. Bigger, stronger, longer reach, but it wasn’t the act itself that was a threat. Bobby had been right (of course): Dean needed— _wanted_ —to trust Sam, and Sam was fucking it all up.

He took a deep breath, and Dean was doing that thing—blinking rapidly like he was waiting for an explosion, something he knew was going to make him flinch.

Dean did flinch. Grimaced, rolled his eyes again. Shook his head, laughed scornfully. At one point, he made Sam stop talking altogether and go with him to the corner market for a half-rack of beer. Sam picked up an apple and a protein bar for himself and a bag of jerky for Dean, but Dean ignored it when offered.

Four beers later and Dean had his head in his hand and an incredulous look on his face, and Sam finally had nothing more to say.

They sat in silence. Sam fidgeted with his apple core before carefully dropping it in the trash next to the bed. Wiped sticky fingers on his pants. Looked over at Dean looking back at him. Sighed, wished he’d bought some bottled water and sipped his warm beer instead.

“Dean—”

“So lemme get this straight: you’ve been training with this demon since I disappeared. Then you started having sex with her. And she taught you how to kill her own kind. So, that _whole time_ I was gone, you were with her.”

“Not the whole time. Not every d—”

“You’ve been working with her, fucking her, _and_ you’ve been…” Dean moved his mouth like he just couldn’t get the words out. But he did, and they sounded awful to Sam’s ears. “You’ve been drinking. Her _blood_. Drinking her blood. ’Cause it’s some kind of steroid for you, uh, what with the demonic go-juice you’ve already got in you.” Dean drained his beer and fished another out of the mini fridge. “Did I miss anything so far?”

Sam wasn’t trying to sulk, but Dean was being a jerk. “No. Dean, I—”

“Wait. This is my favourite part. I mean, this is really, y’know, _personal._ Okay, so. You’ve been fucking her. I was right. You are fucking her…and me. At the same time. …I mean, I knew. I knew it.”

“I’m sorry. I know you’re mad—”

Dean blurted laughter and Sam dropped his head, couldn’t bear the derision on Dean’s face. “I’m not _mad_ , Sam. There’s a lot of things I am right now, but…” Dean’s amusement died like it had never existed and he straightened his leg, wincing. He’d jammed his right hip pretty hard crashing the fire truck. “She’s a dead girl, you said. She’s not squatting in some poor bitch’s temple, making her watch while you rape her, right?”

“Jesus. No! No, she even brought me the death certificate.”

“Gross. So, necrophilia. Awesome.” He drifted for a moment, ran fingers over his chin thoughtfully. “Now, this next bit I might be a little confused about, but what I heard you say to me was… She wants you to rule Hell.”

The tab broke off the top of his beer because he’d been fiddling with it too much. Dropped out of his fingers into the can. He could feel Dean staring at him. He sat the beer on the nightstand and finally looked up. Was shocked to see Dean’s eyes brimming with tears. He put a hand up when Sam opened his mouth.

“Let’s back up,” Dean said, voice thick. He drained his beer and then sent the can sailing into the bathroom with a hard pitch. Sam tried not to jump at the clatter, but Dean wouldn’t have noticed. Had gotten up for another beer and stood now with his back to Sam. “What you were telling me yesterday—you can drag demons outta people with your powers. Ruby taught you how. And when you drink blood—” he turned, clear-eyed again “—you can _kill_. Kill demons? Is that true?”

Sam nodded.

“Why don’t you just use the knife that, uh, Ruby gave you?”

“Because the knife kills the host, too. I can do it without killing the person they’re in. Not just send them back to Hell so they can turn around and get right back into someone. Kill them forever, and save the person possessed if they’re not already dead.”

Dean seemed to consider that. Stared off, tapping his fingers against the cold can he was holding. “Anything else you can do?” he finally asked.

Sam hunched his shoulders. “I thought it only worked on demons. I don’t know what Liber was. Ruby said—” Dean sneered and opened his beer “—she said he was an archon, and all the lore says they’re lesser gods, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t just a really powerful demon. Like Lilith.”

“Whatever,” Dean mumbled. Then, “What? What else?” because Sam was looking at him, feeling guilty though he wasn’t sure over what, exactly.

“Well, like, when I do it. When I use my, my powers… I can kind of…control…people. Like, make them stop moving. Or push them away. I did it in the street when that group—when they grabbed you.”

Dean sat back down. “Oh.”

“I didn’t hurt anyone.”

“Yeah. That’s good… Y’know, Sam—who else knows about this? About what you can do?”

“I-I dunno. Ruby, she, uh, she said… She told me other demons, um, monsters… Some of them know.”

“I see. Any humans?”

“I don’t—”

“How about hunters? Sam. Do other hunters know? That you’re drinking fucking demon blood? That you can fling people around with your mind?”

“N-no. No, I don’t—”

“You don’t know. You _do_ know that makes you sound like a monster, right?”

Sam shut his mouth. Tried not to scowl. Dean wasn’t _wrong_ , but Sam wasn’t stupid, either. Of course he knew. Dean didn’t need to tell him that. Unless… “Is that what you think, Dean? Do you think I’m a monster?”

“And you want me to be one with you.” Dean glared at him, green eyes bloodshot and haunted. “You think going to Hell is a good idea, and you want me to tag along.”

“I want you to rule it with me,” Sam snapped. Dean looked shocked, but Sam rushed on. “This is everything we _want_! What we’ve been talking about. What if we could do something—if we could change Hell. Stop demons from hurting people. From possessing anyone ever again. We could—” he thought furiously, trying to dredge up all the possibilities, the ideas that came to him in the moments before he fell asleep that seemed utterly perfect “—we could start a civil war, y’know? Turn demons on each other. Get them to slaughter one another and then take out the rest ourselves.”

“How the fuck do you think that’d happen?” Dean shook his head and laughed to himself, then sucked down half his beer.

“You and me, we can do it. They’d never know what hit them.”

“There’s gotta be another way, Sam.”

“There _isn’t_.” Sam finally stood up, nervous excitement too much to contain. Dean watched him rise and begin to pace the small room. “That’s all I’ve been doing, for weeks now. Trying to find another way. I don’t see it, if it’s there. I believe Ruby, and she’s gonna help me stop Lilith. _Kill_ Lilith.”

His zeal wasn’t contagious. Dean appeared as disapproving and closed off as he possibly could. “I can’t let you do this,” he stated.

“You can’t stop me.” Sam smiled as he said it, his own eyes stinging. “ _Come with me_. Be with me, Dean. Please. I love you, and we can do this. We can fix everything. I know we can. It’s like, like—when I left for Stanford. You wanted to come with me, but I ran away without you. I was wrong and stupid. I need you with me.”

“I’m right here.” Monotone, said through his teeth.

Sam threw his hands up and tried a different approach. “I don’t want to be doing this when I’m an old man. I don’t want _you_ doing it, either. And I don’t wanna die without having done something important. I know you feel the same!”

“What we do is important, Sammy. We save people.”

“Dean, let’s save _all_ of them.”

Dean just sat there, impassive. He put his beer down carefully and shifted with a wince, his leg hurting him. Sam wanted to pull him up out of the chair, put his hands on those slim hips, his ass. Hold him up, work the knots and soreness from Dean’s body. Get Dean loose and limber again, get him saying ‘yes’, ‘please’, ‘I want’. When Sam stepped towards him, Dean scooted his chair back.

It wasn’t how Sam imagined this conversation going. He was tired, aching, off-guard and without his notes on the matter. Hadn’t had time to prepare a good argument. He hated that Dean was upset with him, that this was so unsettling to him.

Maybe Sam was missing something.

He saw Dean rub his thumb against his right ring finger. An old habit to adjust the ring he’d always worn—the ring taken from him when he’d been kidnapped.

“I know what happened to you,” Sam said, and his stomach flipped as he did, his heart hammered on the back-beat.

Dean cocked his head. “What?”

“Where you were,” he almost-whispered, or maybe his voice just sounded muffled in his own head. He was finally admitting it—to himself. It hadn’t really made an impact when Ruby said it, but now, facing Dean, who was awake and kind-of sober, not in the midst of a nightmare or a flashback—this was making it real. “You said it, remember? I didn’t know if you… I didn’t know what to think about what you were saying. But Ruby told me. She confirmed it.” Sam leaned forward, but Dean tucked his arm around his middle, hid his free hand from Sam, beer clutched in the other. “You were in Hell. I know, and I’m sorry! But…it won’t be like that if we’re there together.”

“You don’t know what it was like,” Dean said. Numb-throated, grating.

Always the little brother: “Are you scared?”

Dean’s expression darkened and those cold eyes flashed. “If you think you know,” he growled, pissed, and just drunk enough for the tears to come back, “what—where I was. What—what _happened_ to me—” and he laughed again, a low, mean sound “—how? _How_ could you think I’d go back?”

Sam stepped away from him. Sat down again, then leaned over and pulled one of the bags onto the bed. Retrieved his tattered folder of notes and photocopies. Dean stared at him. Even when Sam tried to hand him a bunch of papers—the ones outlining all that he could find on the First Blade and Knights of Hell, Dean ignored the papers and kept his eyes fixed on Sam’s face like he was expecting it to change. Maybe he wanted it to. Wanted something else to be hiding in Sam’s body, controlling him, making it so it wasn’t _really_ Sam saying all this, who’d done such things.

But it was, and Sam had to make him understand. “If we find out how to use this,” he said, smoothing his hand over a Xeroxed picture of the First Blade, “you’ll be powerful, Dean. No one will be able to hurt you.”

“You really don’t get it, do you?”

“What, then? Explain it to me!”

“There aren’t words.” Dean’s face softened all at once and Sam caught a glimpse of all the hurt, the fear, the _sorrow_ Dean had inside him. “What you want to do, Sam, it’s not… There’s no going back. There’s no forgetting. Everything I saw, everything I did—it’s forever. And you want to _live_ that way. No, you want to _die_ , and be in Hell, forever.”

“Ruby said—”

“ _Fuck_ what Ruby said!” Dean barked. “Goddammit, Sam. She’s a _demon_. She’s a liar—it comes with losing your soul! I can’t believe you, man. I don’t understand how she’s done this to you. How could you even let her get so close?”

Sam’s reply was quiet. He didn’t want Dean to think he was blaming him, but it was the truth. “You were gone, Dean. I missed you so much. I was so fucking _alone_. And Ruby…she _saved_ me. I was losing my mind, and she came and she helped me. Gave me purpose, showed me how to be strong, how to do good things! And she found you. She helped me rescue you.”

“What was fucking left of me,” Dean spit. Pressed his mouth into a thin line like he wished he hadn’t. Abruptly stood and went into the bathroom. Sam heard him kick the can on the floor, then after a minute, Dean pissed. Ran the sink and came out with wet hands and a damp mouth. He said, his voice controlled now, “You gotta know it won’t turn out like she says.”

“I don’t see why not. It _has_ to be done—at least my part of it.” Threatening wasn’t the best course of action, but he did it anyway: “And… I’ll do it without you if I have to. I don’t want to, though. I want you with me.”

Dean closed his eyes and made a face like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing, but he didn’t take the bait. “Sammy, you—that fucking place, it messed me up. You can’t be there without it making you into something you don’t wanna be. Trust me.”

“I do trust you! That’s why I want you to go with me! And you know what? That place, where I found you—we can destroy it, too. We can make sure what happened to you never happens to anyone else.”

Dean couldn’t repress a shudder. Hiccuped suddenly and put his elbows on his knees, a hand to the back of his neck. His hair was so long his bangs hid his face from Sam completely, bent down like he was.

“They took you from me, Dean, and we can make them pay. Don’t you want to?”

Dean looked up at him. He’d gone pale again. “I try not to think about it.”

“I can’t _stop_ thinking about it,” Sam admitted. “I can’t go on with those sons-of-bitches walking around breathing the same air as you. Getting away with it every day. And just killing them isn’t enough. They need to suffer. They took you away from me, and they hurt you—”

“I know, Sam. I know what they did.”

“Fuck, Dean, you were _raped._ ”

“I know. So? What can I do about it?”

“We can do _everything_ about it. We—we can be there when every one of those fuckers goes to Hell. ’Cause they will, and we’ll be waiting for them. Don’t you want that? _I_ want that.”

“Most of them weren’t demons or…whatever. Sammy, we don’t kill people.”

“Too late for that, isn’t it? I shot people to get to you. You murdered _kids_ , Dean. _They made you do it._ We can end it.”

Dean slammed his hand down on the table. “ _There’s no end to it_!” he bellowed, louder than Sam had heard him speak in a long time. “Don’t you get it, Sam?” he said, teeth bared, jaw clenched tight. “Shit like that ain’t never gonna stop. _Ever._ No matter what we do. Because human beings are fucked up.” A deep breath, and he ran his tongue over his front teeth under his lip. He said, quieter, slowly, “But it ain’t our place to judge them.”

“Fine, okay,” Sam agreed just to keep Dean calm. “I get it. But… What I’ve been saying… I mean, you and me, Dean. Just think about it! Nothing will ever separate us there. Nothing will take us away from each other. And, and anyone who’s hurt us—hurt _you_ —they would come to us and we could do whatever we wanted to them. They wouldn’t be humans anymore, right?”

“No, they’d be souls. Just souls.”

“Exactly! Dean, I get it. I know you feel—”

“No,” Dean interrupted, hand on the table balling up into a fist. “You don’t.” He was still glaring, patience evaporated, and he was on the verge of tears again. Flushed with them, eyes shimmering, lapping at the overflow. When he spoke, the low vibration broke the surface tension, streaked the right side of his face like quicksilver. “I would never want you to feel this, Sammy. _I_ don’t want to feel it. And if I went there, I would. If I… I can’t. I don’t want to.” He said to the floor, “Don’t make me.”

“You won’t feel better if they’re all dead? Knowing they can’t hurt you or anyone else ever again?”

Dean shook his head, mute. Tears cut shiny furrows along his pale skin, down both cheeks. When Sam came off the bed and to him, it frightened Dean. Sam saw it in the way he tensed, how his pupils went pinpoint, little blackened match tips, flame sucked away as Dean retreated into himself, scrambled to hide somewhere no one could reach him.

“No,” Sam protested. “Dean, please.” Down on his knees, he shuffled forward, opened Dean’s thighs. Put his hands gently on Dean’s legs. Ran them up, slowly, to his hips. Under his shirt. Lined his fingers in between the bones separating him from Dean’s heart.

“I’m sorry,” Sam whispered. “I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to, okay? I’m sorry.” Grief was heavy on Dean’s face, dragging at his mouth and filling his eyes, and Sam’s abrupt, confused laugh came out ripped to pieces under the weight. “Fuck, you’re so hot when you cry, Dean, what the fuck.”

Dean’s lashes tangled together, butterfly quick. “Sam…”

“I’m sorry,” Sam said again. “If it hurts you to think about it, then don’t. What can I do? Can I make it better?”

“Y’always do,” Dean said, a particular slur to his voice Sam only now recognised. Of course he’d have gotten into the pills when he’d given Sam some for his headache earlier.

Dean’s lips parted, and Sam could hear the slowslow breathing that came with opiates in Dean’s system. He wanted to be mad, but the tears pooled at the corners of Dean’s pout were too distracting. Sam reached up and touched them, smeared them across Dean’s bottom lip. When Dean sucked his fingers into his mouth, Sam closed his eyes. Concentrated on how they seemed never ending as they slid in deep. Pulling out was the same. Pushed in, pulled; damp lips and hot, soft mouth around them.

“Open,” Sam instructed, watched to see Dean do it. “Wider. If I feel your teeth I’ll get the gag.”

Dean’s jaw cracked wide even when Sam slid his fingers over his tongue and down to the back of his throat. Wiggled them, tickling, and Dean choked. He glared, but didn’t close his mouth. Sam pressed down on his tongue, three fingers. Added his thumb and squeezed Dean’s tongue hard. Dean tried to jerk back, wincing, but Sam grabbed the back of his neck, jammed his fingers too far, knuckles cut on Dean's front teeth through no fault of his own, and Dean’s cough turned into a gag.

He retched hard enough he spasmed out of Sam’s grip and to his knees. Threw up on the floor. Beer and pills in an acidic little puddle between his hands. He moaned, then flung a wounded look at his brother.

“What the fuck, Sam!”

Sam laughed. Grabbed Dean by the collar, knotted the material with a quick twist of his fist. Held Dean in place while he scooped up two half-dissolved pills Dean must’ve swallowed in the bathroom. The other two from earlier were just white foam, mostly already in Dean’s system.

“No! No—mmph!”

Sam shoved the bitter pills back into Dean’s mouth and clapped his slimy hand over it. Dean didn’t need to be told. Sam felt the pills crunch between Dean’s teeth. Dean winced at the taste and the discomfort of dry swallowing, and when it was done, Sam grabbed his face again. Pinched until Dean opened his mouth. Red, wet eyes followed Sam’s other hand as it left his collar and reached for his jacket on the chair next to them. Then they flicked up to Sam’s face. Away from the gun. Almost didn’t flinch when Sam cocked it.

It clicked against Dean’s teeth, gathered saliva in the barrel as it slid over his tongue until Sam’s wet, sticky trigger finger was just touching Dean’s lip. He got to his feet carefully, shuffled in close, looming over Dean.

“Look at me, Dean. Look. I want to be the last thing you ever see.”

Dean whimpered. Spread his knees, sagging down so his head was forced up, back, and Sam let his loose grip and gravity sink the gun into Dean’s throat. Sam kicked him lightly against the inside of his thigh.

“Get your cock out. I wanna watch you jerk off.”

Small moves, shifting. Dean had to rise up a little to pull his jeans down over his ass and Sam imagined for one second that Dean would curl his tongue against the trigger and fire the gun. The ground seemed to tilt under his feet, dream-like, but he kept still as Dean adjusted. Lips sealed around the barrel as he swallowed, barely blinking to keep eye contact with Sam.

He was hard. Of course he was.

“That’s good,” Sam said as Dean wrapped his right hand around his cock. “What if this is the last time you get to, huh? Gonna do it fast or slow?”

Slow, and tight. Hand down low around the base, squeezing hard enough it fattened up the length left over as he started to pump his fist.

Sam instructed, “Put your other hand on me. Just hold it there. Yeah, good,” he praised as Dean palmed his cock through his jeans. “Faster.”

A looser grip, more slide. Choked up just under the head and using quick little twitches of his wrist. Dean’s mouth opened wide around the Taurus, tongue wriggling absently under the metal, flicking over the trigger guard, Sam’s finger resting lightly on the other side.

Dean wasn’t swallowing anymore. If it was fear of the gun or just not caring, Sam didn’t know, but Dean was drooling from the corner of his mouth. Down his cheek, the front of his throat. Still crying, too, wetting his ears with them. He gagged softly, blowing spit over the barrel and Sam’s fingers as his hips jerked. He was close already.

“Do it. Fuckin’ come for me, Dean.” Sam lifted his trigger finger as he spoke, rubbed Dean’s upper lip. Pushed the gun deeper so his bloody knuckles were in Dean’s mouth, too.

Dean made a noise, teeth scraping metal as his body bowed, spine curling as he came. Sam felt the patter of it hit his boot, the leg of his jeans. Dean’s eyes were huge, sprung wide open and ready to flinch at any sound. He didn’t pull off the gun, though. Held himself right there for Sam to do what he wanted.

“Fuck. _Dean._ ” The hammer struck safety and Sam tossed the gun onto the bed.

He didn’t think Dean could stand—knew _he_ wouldn’t be able to after that. Dropped to his knees in front of his brother and kissed him. Tasted blood (his own) and gun oil. Bitter pills and bile. Kissed him deeper, licked the fear from his mouth. Dean whined. Sam gathered him close, arms around his ribs, reaching up to his neck, holding his head up as Dean went limp, absentee terror turning him to water in Sam’s arms.

“I got you. It’s okay. I would never hurt you, Dean. Not like that. Do _you_ trust _me_?”

A nod, cheek to cheek. “Sam…”

“Go take a shower. I’ll bring you beer.”

Sam helped heave Dean to his feet. Stayed on his knees and held Dean’s hips until his legs were steady, blood flowing again. Dean blinked down at him, sleepy-owl eyes pinpricked and red.

“I didn’t mean to freak you out. I’m sorry. We don’t have to talk about anything else tonight.”

Dean touched Sam’s hands fleetingly, then backed away from him. Slunk into the bathroom and the shower was thumped on. Sam kneed to the table and snagged the paper bag from the beer and used it to wipe the clear mess of vomit off the floor before rising. Retrieved a can of beer as promised and got a sweet murmur of ‘thanks’ when he handed it to Dean over the shower curtain in the steaming bathroom.

Sam put his coat on and his dirty gun in the inside pocket. Plundered Dean’s jacket and jeans. Found his wallet in his coat and snagged the extra money he found there but left Dean the Mentos tin from his pants pocket with the pinner joint and two Ambien inside. The rest of the pills were still in Sam’s bag, which he shouldered.

He scratched a note on the motel pad:

_I love you. Go to sleep. Be back soon._


	29. Chapter 29

Dean was right, there were a ton of messages from Ruby on Sam’s phone. Texts, voicemails, missed calls. Sam deleted them, all the way back to last spring. Removed her phone number from his contacts. Not that he needed it.

Ruby answered halfway through the first ring. “Sam, where are you? Let me come see you,” she insisted.

“Yeah, okay,” he agreed, pulling the Impala onto the street. There was a moment of silence. She’d obviously been expecting him to say no, to put her off. Then, “Well, where are you?”

She was waiting for him in an empty parking lot behind a closed-down skating rink. Dressed all in black but for a crimson shirt under her leather jacket, she was just-over five feet of umbrage, but she couldn’t hide the way her eyes softened when he smiled at her.

“Sam,” she admonished as she stroked his arm like she simply couldn’t keep from touching him, “are you trying to get yourself killed? Why would you go after an archon?” She shook her head. “You shouldn’t have been able to do that.” She finally smiled back at him, tugged on his pinky playfully. “I’m actually pretty proud of you.”

“Thank you,” he said, and pulled the knife she’d given him from his belt, grabbed a handful of her long, thick hair, and put the blade under her chin.

“Sam!” She arched away, clutching his wrist, trying to hold him back. “What the _fuck_?”

“You’re going to help me find that place that kept Dean, or I’m going to cut your fucking head off. No more games, no more distractions, no more pretending you don’t know where it is. Tell me, or I’ll kill you.”

“Stab me with my own knife. You can’t trust anyone, huh?” she snarled at him, eyes black.

“I don’t have to use the knife.” He yanked her by her hair, made her stumble and almost hit the ground. She caught herself but before she could stand upright again, Sam curled his hand in the air, catching her acrid soul in his fist. She gasped, tried to back away, but he held her in place, bent to one side, off-balance.

“Bastard. Kill me, and you’ll never find it,” she hissed.

“I disagree. I’ll go through as many demons as it takes. Or like you said, I’ll just kill Lilith and stop the whole thing anyway. But wouldn’t you rather be alive to see that?”

“Fuck— _fine_! Fuck you! Let me up. I’ll do it, just—let me fucking _go_!” She struggled uselessly, trying to shoulder her way free of his power. He thought about letting her drop, making her fall, but humiliating her any more would just make her extra belligerent. He opened his hand, palm flat, and slowly lowered it. She huffed and shook herself like an embarrassed cat, then stalked past him towards the Impala. “Got a map in this piece of shit car, or what?”

He did, and between her jacket pockets and the Impala’s trunk, they had what she needed for the location spell. As fire burned the map away, Ruby sighed loudly and moved closer to Sam so she could see it better. There was no sense in pretending being out of his physical reach would protect her from him now.

He shifted, concerned, as the map slowly burnt away to almost nothing, but Ruby reassured him. “Relax. The fire is our friend. Burns up everywhere but where you wanna be. It’s colour-coded. Blue means tomorrow night. Out,” she commanded and the indigo flames vanished. The map was charred, unreadable except for a small circle on the east coast. He picked up the singed piece. Baltimore was in the dead-center.

“There. Guess you lucked out. Could’ve been in Arizona or something. This is really stupid. And a waste of time. What makes you think they won’t just rebuild?”

“They might. Or maybe I can convince them otherwise. Either way, I’m burning it to the ground.”

“You’re _welcome._ You don’t seem too happy about it.”

“I need to be stronger.” He slipped the scrap into his jacket and closed his eyes. “Ruby, I need it.”

“I know, Sammy. You don’t even have to ask.”

She turned him and he let her. Sat on the trunk, scooted back enough that she could clamber up with him, straddle him. Heard the _snikt_ of her switchblade opening. Smelled her blood a second before he felt the silky sting of it on his lips.

“I like that I’m inside you. You’re carrying me around with you. Sam, I want you inside me. Please? It’s been weeks.” Ruby used her free hand to fumble with the front of his jeans, but he stopped her. Bit into her arm to distract her. She cried out, bucked on his lap, spreading her legs as wide as she could to press herself, soft and hot, against his groin, but he refused her. Eventually had to grab her other arm and twist it behind her to keep her from trying to strip him.

“S-stop. Sam. Baby, stop. I can’t—”

When Sam finally opened his eyes, she was pouting, but he ignored it. He wasn’t going to do that to Dean again. He let her go reluctantly. Licked his lips and winced when something like a hunger pang clawed through him. “I need more.”

“I’ll get you more. I’ll get you all you need, Sammy. You just make it to Mobtown and I’ll hook you up. You trust me, don’t you?” She searched his face like she honestly expected an answer, then jumped off the Impala when he remained impassive. “What the fuck do I gotta do for you, huh? I’m just trying to look out for you. I—Sam, I—”

“Don’t. Ruby, don’t even think about it. We’re doing this together, okay. And I know I couldn’t do it without you, but there’s nothing more to it.”

Ruby glared up at him, her hands clenched into fists, blood still dripping steadily onto the asphalt. She was doing it on purpose. Teasing Sam with it. “Guess I shoulda known, huh? Didn’t want to believe the rumours. But it’s obvious.”

He spread his legs, hooked his heels on the Impala’s bumper, and put his elbows on his knees. “What’s obvious? Say it.”

“You and your brother.”

“What about us?” he dared her.

“I should have warned you, but I didn’t really think…” She looked away from him, aiming for regretful, ruined it by giving him a sidelong glance.

“Ruby.”

“It’s one of the Seals, Sam. ‘When brother and brother lie together in violation of righteous love, and commit upon one another all seven vile indignations and engage in sodomy as a willful act in defiance of the Law, then shall a Seal break, creating a rift between mankind and Heaven.’ _All seven_? I don’t even know what they all are—did you take pictures?”

“You’re lying.”

“Am not,” she cheerfully replied. “Can’t unring that bell, can you? I guess to you, fucking your brother is less bad than being with me… But maybe you’ll come around.”

“Ruby, stop talking.”

“Oh, right. Because you’ll kill me now, after all this, is that it? You’re gonna take on Hell _and_ kill Lilith, _if_ you can even find her—all without me. What, with Dean by your side you can conquer the world, huh?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

Oddly, she leaned towards him and squinted, then smirked. “Okay, Sam. Look, I get it. I know how much Dean means to you. I’m not judging. But I really do like you. You know that, right? I _care_ about you. And this stupid place,” she said, gesturing around, one hand bloody but she’d finally cut the flow off. “Don’t be mad at me. I’m here for you. Haven’t I always been? I won’t leave you alone to figure all this out. You and Dean… Whatever, okay?” Another little grin. “Maybe he’ll come around, too.”

Sam levered himself off the car and she skipped back a step.

“Hey, just kidding! Mostly… I’ll see you tomorrow night, Sammy.”

And she was gone, the crusted blood on the asphalt and the fire inside him the only proof she’d been there.

His phone buzzed in his pocket. A text from Dean: _Come back_

Sam drove to the motel, his mind empty. He kept it that way. Concentrated on the sound of the engine, counted stoplights and left turns and seconds until he pulled into the parking lot of the Savannah Motor Lodge, right up to the door of their room.

Dean had fallen asleep after sending the text and didn’t stir when Sam entered the room. He had the heat high, of course; the lights were on and Sam left them that way. Loved how they lit up his brother’s body where he was sprawled, mostly on his side, naked but for Sam’s iPod plugged into both ears, and the sheet down around his thighs. Sam stripped slowly, not taking his eyes off Dean; quietly, so Dean’s breathing never even changed, didn’t slip into startled, nervous panting. As he crossed the room, Sam let his eyes unfocus, like a soft-blur filter on the picture before him. Refused to see the bruises and scars and sharp bones that were proof of Sam’s inability to protect Dean, to keep him close and safe—as Dean had done for him, always, from the moment he’d known there _was_ danger out there.

His skin felt like cool water under Sam’s palm, like floating his hand on the surface of a lake during high summer. Soft and delicate and gently thrumming with Dean’s heartbeat and breath.

He popped the right earbud free and Dean grumbled at that. Sam could just barely hear R.E.M. playing through it. “Dean,” Sam murmured, gliding his touch, thumb-stroking down his side to his ass. Dean made a sleepy noise and smiled to himself before tucking his face into the crook of his arm.

“Dean, I’m sorry,” Sam said, steam-hot tears in his eyes suddenly. Scalding his cheeks. “I love you. I’m sorry. I’m gonna fix everything.” Said—with no real voice. “I’m gonna show you. You’ll see. You’ll believe in me, trust me again.”

He lifted Dean by his hips and settled him on his belly and Dean’s only protestation was to wedge his face into the darkness of his arm again. The room smelled like weed and the Mentos tin was popped open on the nightstand, empty.

Sam put his mouth to the trail his fingers had made. Kissed Dean from the back of his neck down to his tailbone. Got languid sighs when he used his tongue, licked his way even lower, deeper. Split Dean’s ass to get to his hole. Flicked his tongue over it, all around. Inside, and Dean pushed back like a lazy wave, rocked onto Sam. Dean would let Sam do anything to him, but there were some things he _loved_ , and being eaten out was one of them. Sam gave Dean what he wanted. Dean made almost no noise, was limp and unresponsive while Sam tongued him tender and open and spit-filled until lube would be overkill.

Dean tried to raise his head when Sam dragged his dick through the wet mess he’d left, but Sam nudged him back, kissed his neck and shoulder as he covered him, forced Dean to accept him. He heard Dean’s gasp only because he was so very close to his face when he bottomed out. Sam nuzzled into Dean’s hair as he started fucking him, slow and deliberate. Thought he heard his name, wanted to feel it, and tilted Dean’s chin, craned his head around to get to his lips.

Dean’s eyes were closed but when Sam ground his hips against Dean’s ass, his huge dick—god, he felt _monstrous_ right now, enough blood for another whole person inside him—stirring Dean’s guts, Dean blinked up at him and yeah, he was not really awake. Eyes glazed over, pupils still tiny, he sighed, then pushed. Wanted up, and Sam gave him room. Hovered over him, only half inside, and Sam was the one to shut his eyes when he felt Dean squirm. Sam had to shift, get his legs between Dean’s, who kneed himself up and wide open. Arched, face and chest and palms down on the mattress, and Sam groaned at the feel of Dean hanging off his cock, touching almost nowhere else. Another push—back, hard, jamming Sam into him at an angle that made them both curse and Sam rolled his hips, knowing just where he was hitting inside Dean.

“S-stop—hold s-st—”

“Okay. Yeah.”

One of Dean’s hands disappeared beneath him, and Sam felt him seize up tight when he touched himself. A shiver ran through them both as Dean stroked his own cock a few times, and then his hips jerked as he fucked himself on and almost-off Sam’s cock, slipping down to the tip just so he could feel it open him up over and over again and he was making these noises like it was painful, like he couldn’t take it.

Sam wanted to fuck Dean through his orgasm, maybe even win another from him. He wanted to fuck Dean forever, is what it was, but there was no withstanding the feel of Dean snapping tight around him, shivering, collapsing like he’d been knocked unconscious, _moaning_ , a death-rattle that sounded like Sam’s name. Sam came before the syllable was finished, hips stuttering, and Dean was laughing breathlessly. Grunted and laughed louder when Sam collapsed onto him, covered in goosebumps.

It was a team effort to roll onto their sides and Sam caught his breath between kissing Dean’s neck, watching over his shoulder as Dean licked his own hand clean. So carefully, thoroughly, making sure nothing was left on his skin. When he was done, Sam slipped out of him just to lean over Dean and kiss the taste from his mouth. No evidence.

They didn’t have to leave right away. Baltimore was only six hours slow driving northeast.

He wrapped an arm tight around Dean’s chest. Surprisingly, Dean reached up and squeezed it.

“Hurt still?” he asked quietly.

Sam rolled his shoulder. “Not much.” It didn’t hurt _at all_. There was a bruise from the rebar, but it was already green and fading.

Dean ‘hm’d at that, but nothing else. After a minute he let go of Sam and groped around, came up with the loose earbud. “Who’s this?” he asked, jabbing it aimlessly at Sam’s head.

“Here, stop.” He took the piece and fit it into his ear. “Killing Joke,” he answered after a few seconds. “Best band you’ve never heard of.”

Another hum, and that was it. Sam felt forgiven. It wasn’t over. Nothing was resolved. But Dean had reached out to him, let him get close again. Sam wasn’t going to push it. He stayed right there behind his brother, listening to whatever Dean didn’t skip on the player. What they’d done—or maybe just being so close to Dean—mellowed out the prickling urgency inside Sam. He closed his eyes. Later, he felt Dean disentangle himself and leave the bed, stayed awake just long enough to make sure he came back.

Sam woke up an hour before his alarm went off. He opened his eyes, rolled away from Dean and went to his phone like he knew it was going to ring. He took it into the bathroom with him and, sure enough, the texts came in like a weird little grocery list:

_I raided an exhibit for you. YW._

_Holy oil_

_Bronze and silver daggers, blessed_

_Iridium bullets_

_Pediatric nurse_

Sam rubbed his eyes and squinted at the phone.

_What? PN?_

She texted back:

_Ya. She knows things :)_

_Bring my blade, duh_

He sent Ruby questions and then demands, but she didn’t answer. He quietly set up his laptop and quickly discovered what she meant by ‘exhibit’. There was a Holy Land display in D.C., which was between where he was and where they were going. She must’ve stolen a few items for him to use.

Sam restlessly scoped Baltimore on Google Maps like he’d intuitively know where the brothel would show up, then his eyes settled on Dean’s phone on the nightstand. Fair’s fair. He opened it. No recent calls except last night’s text to Sam, but there were dozens of missed calls and messages from Bobby.

Dean’s good-morning was a cup of coffee from the room’s tiny machine, bittersweet from two crushed up Valium and a Xanax, and a sugar packet. He made a face but drank the whole thing. He was relaxed in the car, rubbing his thumb over his leather bracelet like a quiet compulsion. A couple hours northeast and Sam dug three more pills out of his pocket and handed them to Dean. Dean snapped them in half with his front teeth and swallowed, then asked, “Why are you doing this?”

“To keep you safe.”

“Yeah, we’d be real safe in Hell, Sam.”

“We’d be together.”

“We’re together now,” Dean countered.

“I don’t ever want to lose you again.”

Dean shook his head. An hour later, he slurred. “Where’re we goin’?”

“I’m not sure.” It wasn’t a total lie. Ruby still hadn’t contacted him with an address.

Dean scrubbed a hand over his face, but it fell hard back into his lap when he stopped. “I want to go with you,” and Sam wasn’t surprised that Dean knew something was up.

“No. Not this time. But after this, everything will be different. I won’t leave you behind again.” Impulsively, he added, “We’ve got a lead—”

“We?” Dean interrupted.

 _Shit._ “Y-yeah. I mean—that’s where we’re going. She, uh, Ruby, she’s got someone who probably knows where Lilith is. Or will be.”

Dean took a long, slow breath and rubbed at his face again, like he was wiping tears. “That sounds great. As long as it’s you an’ me. Your demon bitch is a dealbreaker. Tell her to fuck off, an’ I’ll go with you.”

“Dean, I can’t. I wouldn’t have gotten this far without her, and I won’t make it to the end if she isn’t helping.”

“Helping? Y’mean like, bein’ your demon Slurpee?”

Sam gripped the wheel to keep from backhanding Dean. “I’m not drinking demon blood for kicks! I’m getting strong enough to kill Lilith.”

“Strong?” Dean laughed softly. “What, strong—like me? How much ’til you’re addicted, huh? Sure she isn’t poisoning you?”

When Sam had nothing to say to that, couldn’t defend himself for once—because Dean was completely right—Dean slouched down and rolled his head on the seat to look over at Sam. Barely able to keep his eyes open, he said, “This is about as far away from strong as you can get. Try weak. Try desperate. Pathetic.”

The urge to hit him disappeared completely. How long had it been since Dean hadn’t had a bruise on him that Sam had put there? He was strung-out and worried—scared, probably. For Sam. He was just trying to look out for his little brother. Sam sighed.

“Saving the world is what matters, Dean.”

“Let’s find another way, then,” Dean said, his voice faint, fading. “Go back to Bobby’s. We can all figure somethin’ else out. You didn’t give us a chance. Didn’t tell us…”

Three hours later, Sam had to slap Dean. Couldn’t wake him up any other way. Got him into a motel room about five miles from downtown Baltimore, stumbling and dragging his feet and Sam doing most of the work for them. Poked a phenobarbital into the back of his throat and got him to drink a bottle of water. That brought him around some, and Sam tied him up just because he could. Trapped Dean’s wrists to his chest with rope wound around him like a harness. Put cuffs on Dean’s ankles and bent his knees until his feet were near his ass, and secured them like that to his thighs. Had to pinch his cheeks against his teeth to get him to open up for the ball gag, then rolled him onto his stomach so he didn’t have to look at the anger clouding Dean’s vacant eyes. Spent the next few hours prying Dean’s asshole open with the fingers of both hands until he could practically see all the way up inside him.

He didn’t want to think about anything. Not what Dean had said ( _addicted_ , _pathetic_ ), not about what he was going to have to do ( _a pediatric nurse?_ ), and he’d already planned his assault on that place months ago ( _kill them all_ ), so he took his time with Dean instead. Got him whimpering and drizzling precome on the bed, then coming twice without Sam touching anything but his prostate. He was flower petal soft when Sam finally pulled him back onto his dick, and Dean squirmed like an amputee as Sam fucked him, helpless to do anything but take it. Sam came with his fingers hooked onto the edges of Dean’s eye sockets just so he knew what those muscles felt like twitching, too. Left him on his stomach until he was ready to come again because he didn’t want it leaking out, wanted Dean to absorb it all.

The sun was gone by the time Sam let Dean go, but the days were definitely getting longer. Sam wandered out to the Impala for stale bagels and peanut butter picked up two states ago—Dean would at least eat the peanut butter, hopefully—his mind calm, his nerves steady, and then his phone buzzed. Nothing but an address.

Dean let him back in the room and licked creamy peanut butter off a dirty spoon while Sam crushed up more pills with the end of a Bic pen in one-half of a mesh tea ball. Made a fluffy, off-white pile of fine powder on the tabletop.

“Where are you going?” Dean asked. He moved to the chair across from Sam and used Becker, Walter Carl’s ID to make the powder into neat little rows, like bones all laid out. Sam ignored the question. Dean sniffed two of the five lines, one up each side his nose, with a cut-short, bright orange straw from a coffee kiosk. “Are you coming back?”

“Of course,” Sam answered.

“You don’t look like it. You look like you’re off to steal the plans for the Death Star.”

“Well, I’m not. I’ll be fine, Dean. It’s no big deal.”

“Ruby’s gonna be there,” Dean didn’t ask. Snorted another line and made a face like it burned.

“We’ll talk about that when I get back, okay? I promise.”

The last two bumps and Dean laughed, choked on it and coughed.

“It’ll be different. After tonight. I’m doing this for you, Dean.”

Dean jerked back at that. Searched Sam’s face with quickly filming-over eyes. “Sammy…”

Sam stood and pulled Dean up with him. Put his arms around him and held him until he was the only thing keeping Dean from puddling on the floor, and then draped him on the bed.

“I told you, Dean. I can’t deal with it. I can’t have them hunting you. I can’t even have them _alive_ after what they did to you.”

Dean looked up at him, eyes shaking in their bruised sockets.

“It’ll be okay. I’ll be back, and everything will be different.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> extra special thanks to [omgbubblesomg ](http://archiveofourown.org/users/omgbubblesomg%0A) for some really great ideas  
>   
> 


	30. Chapter 30

Of all the times he’d seen Ruby displeased with him, this took the cake. She wouldn’t even look at him, kept her hands in her pockets and fumed out the windshield like she wished she could open up a sinkhole in front of them just to stop this from happening. Maybe if he could get her talking, she’d calm down.

“So, what is this place, really? Can you give me a straight answer for once? Please?”

A disgusted huff, but, “It’s one of Lilith’s side-projects. She was the first demon, right? But she didn’t have to die to become one.”

“What, really? How—”

“Nobody knows how. Lucifer did something to her, and not even she knows what happened. But she’s been trying to recreate it. Think of it like open mic night. Anyone can come in if they pay the cover charge. She hands out contracts to those who show a lot of promise.”

“She gets them to sell their souls.”

“Yeah, and in the meantime, she goes to work trying to turn those souls black while still in the package. Most of them know—are faithful devotees of Satan to begin with. She’s even trying her hand at making monster-demons.”

“Like demonic vamps?”

“Eh, I don’t know about that. Skinwalkers, though. Shapechangers. That’s why I got the blades and those supercharged bullets for you.”

“Has she succeeded? Changed anyone?”

“Not that I know of. A few aborted attempts. Drove some people crazy, for sure.”

“There _are_ going to be demons there, though, right?”

The glance Ruby finally threw at him was, of all things, worried. “That’s right. You met one of them already.”

“I did? Who?”

“Alastair.”

“De—” And he snapped his mouth shut. _Dean’s master_ , he’d almost said. Was suddenly thrown right back to that first second, seeing Dean after so long, kneeling at Alastair’s feet. All the horror and confusion he’d felt then resurfaced, boiled up in his stomach. Sweat sprang out on his forehead, and he swallowed hard around nausea in his throat. Ruby was watching him, lips in a tight line.

“Yeah,” she said. “Me, too.”

Sam cleared his throat. “W-what does _that_ mean?”

“It means he’s now practically the grand inquisitor downstairs. Picasso with a razor. He’s fucking _powerful_ , Sam. Lilith might have actually gone the distance with him if you hadn’t shot him; maybe she was even close, because pretty much as soon as his soul showed up in Hell’s green room, he got top billing. You’re lucky there seems to be some kind of incubation period on brand-new demons because if he was able to get out and look for you himself, Dean’d be in a box at the foot of his bed and Alastair would be prancing around in your peeled-off skin like a onesie.”

“You’re getting a kick out of this, aren’t you?”

She scoffed. “Oh, yeah, I’m really thrilled that this is happening. Let’s just hope you’ve got enough muscle to kill him.”

“You think I can’t?”

“I think you’re out of shape. You looked like garbage after Liber.”

“So how do I tone up?” he asked.

Sam knew the answer already, but he didn’t want to do it. …Okay, he _did_ , but he hated that he had to. He wanted to be powerful enough without the blood. Maybe Ruby was right and this was a stupid idea, a waste of time when the endgame was so close. He’d be able to do anything he wanted to when he took Lilith’s place…but this would be one final warm-up before he went to bat. And he wanted it over with so Dean wouldn’t have to deal with it, ever again.

There was a decrepit cottage tucked behind an abandoned low-rise housing project, like someone’s grandma had refused to give up her home and they’d had to build almost right on top of it, and Ruby led him to the cellar. A woman in blue scrubs was chained to the wall, the iron cuffs blackening her wrists. Ruby had filled him in, and Sam didn’t bother wasting time. It would be dark in a few hours.

“Where’s Lilith?” he asked the demon.

“I’m not scared of you,” the demon spat. She was pretty—rather, her vessel was. Petite, wavy brown hair, big eyes and a doll-like mouth that curled up into a shaky sneer when Sam stepped closer to her.

The demon screamed until he was sure the woman’s vocal cords should have been permanently damaged… Like Dean’s were. And wasn’t it curious that demons tended to keep their meatsuits together even when they were being tortured—like whatever keeps a human breathing even under extreme duress, keeps their heart beating—and Sam didn’t even realise the demon was talking now. Because it was so easy to do what he was doing, he’d spaced out; started thinking about his brother and how he’d stopped breathing that time with the heroin and Sam had wanted him knocked out tonight, no chance of Dean disappearing or somehow coming after Sam, but what if he’d given him too much?

She was cursing and trying to bargain, and then threaten, and finally Sam just scooped her soul into his hand and twisted, digging in with claws he didn’t-quite have, and the screaming turned to begging and finally, information.

“Tell us where she is,” Ruby demanded, subtly bumping Sam as she spoke, as if she knew very well this wasn’t what he was concentrating on.

The demon was panting, hanging limply from her chains. “Fine. Just let me die!”

Sam dropped his hand. “Deal.”

“A week from now she’s gonna be at a convent—St. Mary's, Ilchester, Maryland.”

Sam glanced down at Ruby, but she looked just as baffled as him. That was where they’d planned to lay their trap, but he’d assumed they’d have to lure Lilith to it.

“Why would she go there?”

Eyes closed, struggling to get her feet under her again, the demon missed the exchange and said, “Lilith… She’s gonna break the final Seal.”

Ruby bit her lip when Sam shot another look at her. Fuck, how had all the other Seals been broken so _fast_? How had he not heard about them? “What’s the final Seal?” he snarled, palm up again, threatening.

“I don’t know! I don’t! I swear! Please, s- _stop_ —” she squealed when Sam yanked on her soul again. “Kill me! You _said_!”

He curled his hand into a fist and the demon shrieked, but he didn’t let her die. She arched, moaning, and looked at them both, frantic comprehension in her eyes. “You promised!” she screamed.

Ruby pulled out her switchblade. “Sorry, sister, but you’re a walking, talking power-up.”

The demon kicked out at Ruby, twisted, her iron shackles hissing around her wrists and then she laughed. “Don’t forget—it’s not just me you’re bleeding. In fact, I’d like you to meet someone—Cindy McClellan, R.N., come on down!” She closed her eyes and went limp, then a heartbeat later gasped and looked around.

“Oh, _great_ ,” Ruby grumbled.

It didn’t work. Sam felt for the woman, he did, but there was so much at stake.

Her shirt was bunched up, in the way, and he tore it down the middle, then ripped it from her body completely. Cindy screamed, begging him not to hurt her, not to rape her, and it was best just to get it over with. He had his own knife of course, but it seemed right to use Ruby’s switchblade to open up the demon’s throat. It’s what they’d always used when Sam drank blood.

The first splash from her artery was _beautiful_ , dark and thick, like leggy wine, and Sam couldn’t help himself. Shot forward and put a hand to the deep cut he’d just made, not really to staunch the flow—just to _feel_ it. Hot and slick, and he licked it from his own palm first, dipping into where blood pooled in his cupped palm. Closed his eyes and got in close to the woman. Ran his tongue along her bloody collarbone, followed the stream up to its source. Sealed his mouth over the wound. Only had to swallow from there, Cindy’s panic and Hell’s magic forcing the fount strong and steady down his throat. So much of it. His stomach twisted, cramped, then seemed to hollow out. More than enough room for what he needed to take from her.

He gripped her by the hair and shoulder, and when she bucked and flailed in one last frenzied try for escape, he got his legs between hers and pinned her with his hips. Crushed his throbbing-thick cock against her belly and that’s when Ruby sidled up behind him. Jammed her hands between his body and Cindy’s and squeezed him through his jeans. Familiar touch, expert, and Sam wanted to gasp. Had to flatten his tongue against the cut to stop the blood and keep from choking on it, and he gave in. Gave Ruby space to get him out, to look down, aim, let blood and spit drip from his mouth onto her hands and his cock and she purred something encouraging and obscene behind him as she jerked him off with the mess.

Sam latched onto the demon’s throat—weakening pulse, and he did suck now, high on the knowledge he didn’t have to stop like he always had to with Ruby. Could drain this vessel to the last drop. Tried to gauge how much he had left, how this felt compared to the almost-gallon he’d had before. Ruby was jerking on him, distracting him.

It felt like spying through a keyhole as he watched her squirm her way between him and the woman. Out of focus and far away, and no blood was coming over his hand anymore. He’d stopped the flow. Wasn’t done, wanted more, so he slowed her pulse, pinched off the artery while he gave Ruby room to squat down in front of him, her hair clinging to the gelled blood on Cindy’s belly and thighs. His hands hadn’t moved; that wasn’t how. He kept the demon and the barely-alive woman right where he wanted them without even really thinking—without knowing he was doing it. Automatic, and he thought it’d be funny—

Ruby hissed around his dick, but didn’t avoid the piss that soaked her hair and back all at once. A simple thought, a small squeeze with his power, and he’d emptied Cindy’s bladder. Probably burst it, because there was more blood and _no_ , that was _his_ —

He came a long, drawn-out time later, gulping down the last of slow-clot blood, and Ruby was a mess, sucking on his balls as his come pearled down her neck and she laughed, black eyes shiny and bottomless when he pulled her up by her throat and her blood-pissed hair, pinned her against the wall like that next to the dead woman and fucked her until she stopped laughing. Until she was something feral and thrashing in his hands and her soul was roiling just inside her scream-open mouth. Whether he came again or not didn’t matter to him: he wouldn’t have felt it anyway. Not with so much power scalding him from the inside out, reducing pitiful things like ‘pleasure’ and ‘pain’ into transient, distant memories.

Ruby had a room nearby, but Sam wouldn’t let her in the car, so he met her there. Changed his bloody, smoky clothes, then skimmed the web and yelled questions at Ruby as she showered like they were an old married couple.

“But _why_ would she go there?” he called.

“Dunno,” she shouted back. “Maybe it’s a soft spot? Good for rituals all around.”

“It seems weird.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” he said, louder.

“Gift horse and all that, I guess?” Ruby said, naked, drying her hair with a rough motel towel.

“I guess.”

He watched her get dressed and put her make-up on, but it was like looking through the wrong end of binoculars. She was light years away from him, something tiny and isolated…and not even _real_. Not like he was. She was dead, empty, insignificant. Sam felt huge. Strong, all-consuming, unstoppable like some kind of fiery comet, ready to devastate everything in his path.

Ruby spoke to him. Said more things about the convent. Gave him directions. Asked him not to do this. A gnat buzzing in his ear. He flicked his hand. Didn’t really notice when she stumbled.

It wasn’t surprising to see the same old brownstone sitting like a blood blister on the corner, the streetlights blinking fitfully the whole length of the block. Sam had no invitation this time, no hidden single-serving gun tucked away. He had a demoness at his side and an arsenal of supernatural-killing items in a bag over his shoulder, a clay jug of holy oil in his hand, and a vessel rippling with potency carrying him right up to it. Around it, pouring an unbroken, impassable barrier of consecrated oil all the way. Ruby stepped into it with him at the last moment and he carefully closed the seal and put a match to it. Flames erupted, licking and swirling, but they seemed to know their place, their exposure, and mellowed quickly, ankle-high and barely visible, but efficient still.

Holy water and rock salt rounds won them entry this time, but Sam gave that up quickly. Traded the shotgun for his Taurus, clip filled with iridium bullets. Dean’s gun was in his belt, loaded with silver. He gave Ruby the jug, and she did as instructed: locking doors with her power and making lines outside them and across hallways with burning oil to keep most things cordoned off.

Ruby had nearly foamed at the mouth when he said he’d left her knife with Dean again.

Monsters came at them. Shapeshifters could pass over salt lines and were cut down with rare-metal bullets. Skinwalkers were hard to hit in their lithe dog shapes, but Sam only missed his targets a few times, and never twice in a row. If there were vampires, they were upstairs, trapped behind Ruby’s shut-tight doors. He lost the blessed knives Ruby had stolen, left them buried in hearts of monsters that were too close to shoot.

Demons were everywhere, and were nothing to Sam at all. He knew them, could see the black-cloud aura of their twisted souls and as easy as snapping his fingers, he snuffed each one out. Left corpses in his wake, mostly. A few had living meatsuits and he stepped over their groaning, disoriented bodies and let Ruby decide what to do with them, like any other humans they came across, souls sold already. Tried to keep track of how many so he could ask for forgiveness later, so he could say a prayer for each of them, but he didn’t stop her from smashing their spines to splinters against the wall when they bolted from rooms, tried to escape. There would be no escape if Sam could help it. He would pray for them, but he didn’t know which ones if any—maybe all—had hurt Dean. And he wasn’t really conscious of it, just let his feet and his heart carry him deep into the brothel, but he was hunting the one who’d hurt Dean the most.

Sam found Alastair in a wide-open room with grey walls and a concrete floor, and in the center, a huge sigil: an eight-pointed star, accented with alchemical symbols. Two figures were lying in the middle of it, unbound but obviously immobile. A young woman in a tank top and jeans, and an old man in a suit. They were awake. The woman looked pissed and the guy a bit scared. Both were trying to catch a glimpse of the man standing on the far side of the circle from Sam, reading from a massive tome on a stone pedestal.

“ _Hic cruor messorius, illud sigillum, quod luciferem reverendum obstringit, aperiat ut resurgat_!” Alastair intoned, and before Sam could stop him, he stepped around the pedestal and into the trap, carrying a scythe. Sam shouted, but Alastair dragged the curved blade across the old man’s throat. Sam had to turn his face away from the blast of intense, white-blue light from the wound, from the man’s eyes and mouth. He heard Ruby gasp.

Alastair seemed to pay no attention to the intruders and stepped over to the woman, grabbing her by the shoulder and putting the scythe to her throat, but Sam flung a hand out. Reached for the pedestal, wrapped his will around it and jerked it towards him. It scraped across the floor, sparking and grinding on the concrete, and through the sigil, flaking the paint away. The woman disappeared instantly, right out from under Alastair’s blade.

The pedestal wobbled as Sam released it and then went over with an ear-splitting crash, ripping the book in half as it shattered. Alastair’s shoulders slumped and his head dropped for a second, then he lifted it, smiling right at Sam.

“Oh well,” he said with a voice Sam had heard in his nightmares, back when he used to sleep that deeply, “there’s more where they came from. Hello, again. You find the place okay?”

“If you have anything interesting to say, this is your last chance, Alastair.” Sam moved closer, angling himself.

“Pretty strong there, son. You’ve been taking your iron supplements? That dirty slut behind you your nutritionist? Making sure you get your RDI of demon blood?”

“You have no idea.”

“I think I do, actually. We all know what you and your whore have been up to. What you two do whenever you get the chance. You think you can keep it a secret, but it’s on pay per view in the Pit. You know, you did me a favour, boy,” Alastair sneered. “Didn’t have to wait around for the contract on my soul to expire! I was actually planning on living out the rest of my time topside, but now that I’ve been down below—” he drew a long breath through his nose and tucked his shoulders in, arms close to his sides, almost hugging himself “—I like it. The climate does wonders for my allergies.” His eyes narrowed, thoughtful, then he smiled like the scythe wound on the dead man at his feet. “How’s your brother?”

Sam stepped towards him. He didn’t want to miss, and he wanted to _see_ Alastair die, up close. Again. “You’re going to regret ever knowing he exists.”

Alastair ticked his tongue on the back of his teeth, an admonishing noise. “Now, now—Sam, isn’t it? Oh! But I heard that name—” his eyes rolled back in pleasure “—so _many_ times. Cried it in his sleep. Named his favourite hound after you.” That cutting smile again. “It was his last word on more than one occasion. It’s a good thing we had that wretched angel on tap to kick-start his heart. Can you _believe_ it came here to take Dean from _me_?”

That startled Sam. Angel? So that meant—

“You’re as easy to read as my little pet ever was,” Alastair observed, tickled by the notion. He swayed like a cold cobra, honing in on every expression and caught breath and twitching muscle that Sam couldn’t hide, high and angry and ashamedly curious.

“Why?” Sam gritted. “Why would…Heaven try to rescue Dean?”

“Oh, didn’t you get the newsletter?” Alastair chuckled. “Why, Dean-o broke the first Seal. He was such a good boy about it, too. Didn’t take more than—” Alastair pursed his lips, ticked his fingers, then cut a slow stare back at Sam “—several hundred dicks of various sizes and shapes up his ass before he agreed to carve into that weeping cunt. You know, I guessed it would have been a stranger, the first time, but he really seemed to _enjoy_ that one. I think it was because he _knew_ her.” Alastair rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “He’s multifaceted, your big brother.”

For one long second, Sam believed it was a lie. And then Ruby said his name. Quietly, reassuringly, and he knew it was the truth. Alastair wasn’t telling _her_ anything new, that was for sure.

Alastair was watching him intently. He shook his finger at Sam after a moment. “I told him. I said, ‘Dean, there’s no turning back, after this. You’re a new animal now.’ I warned him it was a big deal. Monumental. But he got right down off that bench and picked up my razor and he started it. This whole, grand plan.”

“He didn’t have much of a choice.”

“Sam, just kill him and let’s go.”

“You shut your whore mouth,” Alastair bellowed at Ruby. He swung at her, sent her spinning away and into a wall. She bounced off it, went down, but Sam wasn’t going to take his eyes off Alastair to see if she was okay.

Alastair turned back to Sam, head low, like a mad bull ready to charge. “Oh, that’s _all_ my pretty boy has, is _choice._ That’s the _whole thing_ , but you’re just too stupid to realise—”

As easy as _thinking_ about putting his hands around Alastair’s throat, _wanting_ to squeeze the life out of him, and it was happening. The demon lurched backwards, gagging, his blue eyes rolling back too-far into white and then that began leaking out his nose, his ears, and the way he arched reminded Sam of something. He loosened his grip and Alastair roared when he had control of his voice again, but Sam kept him from moving.

“What happened to the girl that night?” Sam demanded, and of all things, he blushed as he did. Not embarrassed…just— “Anna. Dean’s friend. Where is she?”

“Are you _serious_?” Alastair laughed like he was gargling glass. “Oh, Sam, I’m _so_ sorry. She didn’t make it. But you shouldn’t feel bad.” He winked at Sam, but his hands were balled into fists, his nose bleeding, his eyes still rolled white. “You should know, that cunt had it out for you—but that’s another story. Let’s stop this, see if we can’t work something out, and I’ll tell you _all_ about it.”

He heard Ruby scrabbling around behind him, and the way Alastair snarled told Sam he saw her too, and no—he wanted nothing at all from Alastair, and he couldn’t risk Ruby being hurt again.

Sam brought both hands up in a gesture like he was parting curtains and Alastair’s head went one way, his body the other. That white mist he’d seen squirting from the demon’s head hung suspended in the air where its vessel had been a second ago, and Sam caught it easily. Raked his fingers down, his will through it, and it flashed once and was gone.

He turned and offered a hand to Ruby, unmoved when she flinched back from it initially, her eyes wide and locked on his, but then she took it and gained her feet.

“Is there a kennel here?”

She nodded, rubbing the back of her head, scowling when her fingers came away bloody. “But they’re—” she started impatiently.

“Hellhounds. I know. Show me.”

Downstairs, deeper than he’d gone the first time, and behind them, he could hear screaming and cursing as those trapped upstairs tried crossing the salt and holy fire barriers.

Sam smelled the beasts, burnt hair and rancid meat, familiar. It wasn’t so much a kennel they were in as a giant pit. High walls covered with chiseled-in sigils and deep gouges, the latter scratched in by bored creatures and Sam recognised those—the same claws had left scars on Dean. He leaned over the edge of the hole.

“Jesus christ,” he gasped. “I can see them.”

Giant, dog-shaped, but _not_ somehow. Dragon-like heads, scaled and scabbed, some had something like spines instead of fur. Others looked almost flayed, and they were all _smoking_. Like a demon soul, something foggy and black wisped around their forms, like Hellfire burning inside them. Maws filled with fangs, serrated and hooked and needle sharp. Their legs seemed much more flexible than a regular dog’s, their razor-clawed paws almost dexterous, like they could grip onto something if given the chance.

Sam stood at the edge of the pit and watched them race around, baying and snapping at each other, perhaps expecting their next meal to be pushed down to them. Their ferocious snarling nearly deafened him, and fuck, he just wanted them to _shut up_ —and they did. As one, the red eyes of the pack all turned towards him. The hair rose on the back of his neck.

“Sam, did you..?”

“I-I guess. I thought—and they stopped—”

“Try something else,” Ruby prompted.

“Uh. H-here. Come here—” and when they did, some of them with fish-belly white tongues lolling like house-pets “—stay.” They were all clustered near where he and Ruby were standing, still looking up at him obediently. “Down,” he said, more confidently. Each one settled on their stomachs. A couple even rolled over to their sides and sighed.

He could sic them on anyone left in the building, was his next thought, and tattered ears perked up. One howled, low and eerie. Wouldn’t it have been ironic to have turned them on Alastair? He could have made them—

He took the clay jug from Ruby and opened it, upended it over the attentive creatures and the pit instantly echoed with puppy-shrieks and squealing, agonised yelps, and he tossed in a book of lit matches. The holy oil caught and flamed high and the noise was ungodly then. Sam retrieved his shotgun and unloaded the rest of his salt rounds into the blazing pack.

They left behind five smouldering lumps, and Sam was trembling now. Not from fatigue or pain—it hadn’t hurt him at all this time to kill demons. Not even Alastair. But Ruby stopped him from heading up the first flight of stairs they came to, wanting to finish off everyone in the building.

“Sam, wait—” She held out a folded up piece of paper to him, a small pouch dangling from her hand. He recognised the marks on the paper.

“This was on the Devil’s Gate in Wyoming,” he said.

“Yeah. Well, almost. It’s a little different, see, here and here. I modified it, and with this—” she shook the bag “—hopefully, it will slam this portal shut. And this place will come crashing down, or at least be like fingers caught in a door. Sever it off from Hell completely. Or…or something, I dunno, but we want to be outside when it happens.”

He looked at her. She shrugged, self-conscious.

“Thank you,” he said.

She glanced down at her boots. Shifted a foot and pretended to be fascinated by the bloody print she left. She said, “Look, hand-holding really isn’t my thing…but still, I know what this means to you. You’re doing this for Dean, and I hope this does what you want it to. That he comes around and wants to go with you. You guys will work it out. I mean, you always do.”

With that, she turned and headed towards the exit. Glanced once over her shoulder, gave him a good-natured, exasperated ‘come on’ gesture when he didn’t follow immediately.

He couldn’t figure it out. There wasn’t anything she had to gain by doing this for him, by saying those things. Nothing that she didn’t already have from him, anyway. Whatever it took to get him in position—okay, he got that. And he wasn’t going to fight anymore. He was ready (he had to be—a _week_ , Cindy had said), and Ruby was right: he and Dean always worked things out.

They made it back through the building without incident, Sam only having to pop a few more demons. Effortlessly, a mere gesture and they went down, their souls fizzling away. Ruby closed the front doors behind them and Sam watched her chalk the barbed pentagram onto the wood, then she dumped the items from the pouch onto the ground, arranging them: crossed bones, dried purple basil, angelica root, something that looked like ash but glittered as she sprinkled it in a clockwise spiral around and over the other ingredients.

“On the other side of the paper—” she said to Sam, then backed away nervously. She shook her head at him when he raised an eyebrow, but he let her go and sounded out the Latin in his head a few times before he spoke the words, putting his lighter to the outside end of the dust spiral. It flared, sun-gold and very, very hot. Sam yanked his hand back and stumbled down the steps when the sigil caught the glare, magnified it.

It was like looking at an X-ray of the building: transparent, that same gold shine outlining every beam and board in the structure, then the shuddering started. The ground quaked, the building began to shake, but when Sam glanced around, everything else seemed stable. That gold lit the place up from inside and there was a tremendous roar, but Sam swore he could hear screaming. Maybe he just wished it. Then, like putting a lid on a candle, the building went dark. The trembling stopped, and they were left standing outside a suddenly charred husk of a brownstone. The windows were gone, as if they’d been blown out, but no glass had rained down on them. No lights were on anywhere, nothing moved in the blackness.

Inside (Sam had to check, just in case), it looked as though a fire had gutted the place…like ten years ago. There were no remains, even: all of the bodies had simply vanished, but Sam could see—because he knew what to look for—the silhouettes of demon souls seared onto the floor.

“Must’ve got even the ones who’d just sold their souls, weren’t actually demons yet,” Ruby said, crouched down to inspect a mark. “All of them on this floor are shrimpy, comparatively.”

“Good,” Sam replied. A weight had lifted from him. No matter what happened after this, none of what had been done to Dean could reach him now. He still had scars and memories, but they would fade, given enough time. And he would have forever to heal if Sam got his way.

“Feel better?” Ruby asked, standing in the shadow-shrouded corner of the room, her pale skin the only thing making her really visible. She’d kept her distance from Sam, ever since Alastair. He approached her, hand out. She rocked back on her heels. Minutely, but she did it.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Ruby. Thanks for helping me.”

He stepped into the darkness with her. Took her hands in his and pulled her gently, firmly, against him. Waited for her to look up at him, and yeah, she was a little afraid, but she let him kiss her. A trick, but it was okay when he felt the heat of her cheek under his palm as he cupped her face. Slipped his tongue into her mouth and wanted her soft moan to be real.

“Thank you,” he said again, lips in her silky hair.

“You’re stronger now than I ever imagined,” she said quietly.

“I can feel it inside me, Ruby,” he said, his heart stumbling in his chest at the truth of it. “I’ve changed. For good. There’s no going back.” He felt her shift against him, and he hugged her closer. When he added, “And I hope you’re right. …That Dean—that we can make it work,” she hugged him back.


	31. Chapter 31

Sam fucked Ruby again, right there against the crumbling wall. He let her stay pretty, even though she wasn’t. Behind his closed eyes he could see her soul, and it was _ugly._ Misshapen; a cruel, malicious tilt and twist to every feature. Something greedy-eyed and murderously hungry. Snap-jawed and rattling with poisoned quills, she humped her vessel’s little body on his and he knew his dick did nothing for her because she was ripped wide open and empty from cunt to where her heart should be, but that didn’t matter. He had to have her. She knew him—parts of him. Ruby was the only one who saw how bad it was for him when Dean was gone, who knew why Sam had done all those things between then and now. She validated and encouraged him, kept him going. And, snarling and gasping, writhing like a hooked worm in his arms, she reminded him why he had to finish what he’d started. Not for power, not ego, but because he wanted to do something _good_ for this world: give back to the life that had given him Dean.

Dean would be safe next to Sam, better off as close to Sam as possible. Forever. And the rest of the world could go on not knowing the sacrifices Sam had made to give them their lives.

The dead were all around him. After Ruby bit into her own tongue to feed him, he could even hear them. Scared whispers and nervous shuffling, just beyond the Veil—the wellspring of ghosts, the place where fledgling demons got their first whiff of brimstone. Why could he sense them now? Maybe they were waiting for their Reaper. Maybe some were waiting on one that would never come for them—the dead Reaper in Alastair’s circle. Maybe the one that had fled was too scared to return for her bounty.

Or maybe not. His spine tingled, his fingertips were suddenly icy where they were digging into the meat of Ruby’s ass. He smelled ozone and funeral flowers, and there was someone watching him rut between Ruby’s thighs. Sam looked over his shoulder—and they were there. Dean and that Reaper he’d freed from Alastair’s sigil trap, standing in the shadows, holding hands. Dean looked so upset. He said something, staring at Sam but addressing the Reaper.

Sam looked at Ruby, wondering if she saw Dean too, but no, she had her eyes closed, blissed out.

Ruby smeared her mouth on Sam’s jaw, his neck, letting blood run down her chin and throat for him to lick up when he was ready, and she was saying Dean’s name, trying to get Sam to think about his brother while he was fucking her, asking Sam to share with her, let her watch, Dean might even be into it. He couldn’t help fucking her harder, wanting to shut her up, punish her. Hated her for thinking about Dean at all.

A soft _crack_ in the distance, a silenced pistol firing, and Sam felt this gentle pull—or like the floor was slipping out from under him. When he glanced back, Dean was gone. With the Reaper.

Sam didn’t know what he did, how he did it. Ruby yelled, startled. Thumped against his thighs, and maybe he’d dropped her. He didn’t move, but the world did. He wanted to go to Dean, needed to be there right fucking _now_ —and everything zoomed past him and he was hanging in nothingness.

_Dean_

Sam went to him. Fell sideways through everything until he stopped it from happening through sheer force of will. Righted himself, reoriented himself—head up, feet down. Floor, ceiling, walls: the motel. Dean on the bed, that awful look from before smoothed from his face. His hair, plastered to his forehead with dried sweat, the sheet around his ribs stiff with it.

His lips were pale, his eyes sunken and dark. He wasn’t moving at all. Not even breathing, and Sam squinted. Was a little afraid of trying to move, of overdoing it and ending up _between_ , out there. Was just going to step forward when he heard Dean’s voice again. Tilted his head to hear better, peered into the muted light and there was Dean, sitting on the edge of his bed, his hip just touching the body behind him.

Dean was arguing with someone, and Sam could see right through him, now that he really looked. Like Dean was made of glass. And he was. God, he was so fragile, and all the more dangerous because of it.

Something glinted, caught Sam’s eye. Ruby’s knife was on the nightstand instead of tucked under Dean’s pillow, instead of being in his hand, held up in defense against the Reaper coming close to him. She was as transparent as Dean—and she was going to touch him again. Maybe take him. Sam’s shout went unheard. Like there was a roaring river between them—he couldn’t make out what they were saying, and they couldn’t hear him.

The Reaper stopped before she touched Dean, and Sam moved, finally. Found himself right up near Dean, towering over him and the Reaper. Words were coming through now, staticky. Dean said, “—listen to your bullshit at all, Tessa? —other angels? —why—”

The conversation was one-sided. Sam could only hear Dean. The Reaper, Tessa, looked a little pissy, arms folded across her chest, but her pale green eyes were kind. Sad, but kind.

“What’s _God_ —” Dean wrapped his arms around himself, hiding a shiver. His eyes were little-boy huge even though his lips were pressed in a tight line. After a few seconds, he said, “—angels _want_ Lucifer free—”

Tessa nodded. Dean wasn’t looking at her and she sighed, glanced around. Her eyes fell on the blade next to them, and she spoke to Dean.

Dean put his head down as he listened. Covered his mouth like he was going to be sick and Sam saw Dean’s body kick in a weak sleep-twitch on the bed.

Tessa was passionate about whatever she was saying, and Dean shook his head, but Sam knew the look on his face for what it was. Disbelief, mostly, and fear.

Dean stood and Sam’s heart leapt into his throat. He lurched forward and grabbed for Dean, not noticing that Tessa stepped back from his brother. All he knew was that Tessa could take Dean away—Dean could _die_ , right in front of Sam and he was powerless to stop it—

Dean yelped when Sam’s fingers wrapped around his bicep, dug in hard, when they shared an electric shock between them.

“Sammy?”

“You’re alive,” Sam almost sobbed.

Dean frowned. Thumped Sam’s chest with his free hand. “Get the fuck off me. You—”

Sam thought he cut out again but Dean had stopped speaking. Was staring at the bed, at his own body, perplexed. “ _Am_ I dead?” he asked.

“No!” Sam looked around, ready to fight for Dean, but Tessa was gone. “What is going on?” he demanded.

“‘Mostly’?” Dean said, an echo. Then he shook his head again and jerked out of Sam’s grip. When he did, he flickered like a ghost. His image shimmered, faded.

“What is this?” Sam reached for Dean again, but Dean tripped back, landed on the bed. Closer to his body, he stabilised, became slightly more opaque. He glanced at himself over his shoulder and hunched his back.

“Sam, just go back where you came from.”

“I’m not going to leave you here to die, Dean.”

Dean laughed dryly. “That’s exactly what you did, though.” He glared at Sam again, but his eyes were hollow. “I could, you know. Tessa—”

“Is she still here?” Sam asked when Dean paused, cocked his head as if listening.

“Yeah,” was the answer. “She can’t see you, though. She says you shouldn’t be here. Shouldn’t be able to see me at all.”

Sam closed the distance between them with nothing more than a split second of instinct, wanting to protect Dean. Keep him. Dean was _his_ , would die when Sam decided. Sam didn’t think these things: just a neuron blip, a flash of a feeling, and he was right there, Dean craning his head back to look up at him, Sam casting his shadow, darkening Dean’s eyes.

“You tell Tessa if she takes you, I will get you back. I’ll fucking tear Heaven apart to find you. Does she want that? Do _you_ , Dean?”

A mirthless smile. “Come and get me, little brother.”

“No!”

“ _Sam_!”

Ruby was holding his face, shouting at him. His first conscious breath was a shock to his system and he fell. Not far, was crouched down already, but went onto his ass with a grunt. Ruby followed him, kept him from going over backwards. He gasped, choked on blood that wasn’t hers or his.

“Holy shit, Sammy. What the fuck was _that_?”

He brushed her off with a sweep of his arm and staggered to his feet. Took several steps towards the door before he realised his dick was still out, itchy with her come drying on it. He closed his eyes, tried to get his breath back while he straightened himself out. Then he all but ran from the ruined building and to the Impala. Ruby followed, calling after him, but he didn’t answer, didn’t stop.

She hung from his arm while he was trying to get the driver’s side door open.

“Get _off_ ,” he snarled and shoved her.

“I was _trying_ to,” she bitched back at him, but she looked confused. Scared? “Sam, what happened?”

“I don’t know! I just—I saw—I’ve got to go.”

Her nails digging into his arm, and he didn’t have time for this. She squawked when he shoved her again, without touching her this time, knocking her on her ass. She looked up at him incredulously.

“Wait! I’ll go!”

He barely heard her over the engine, through the half-closed door. She scrambled to her knees and reached for him again. “Sammy, just wait! I’ll go check on him. It’ll be faster, won’t it?”

He turned the car off. She smiled, nodding encouragingly. “Yeah. I’ll go. Stay right here. Don’t leave. Okay, baby?”

“Uh… Okay?”

She got to her feet and wiped her hands on her jeans before opening the door so she could reach in and touch his face. She said, “Whatever happened, it looks like it hurt. Haven’t seen your nose bleed like that since the beginning.”

He sniffed and got a throatful of blood. Wiped his nose and the back of his hand came away dripping. “Ruby. Just… Please. Dean.”

“Alright. Alright, Sam. I’ll be back in flash.”

She disappeared, and no matter how many times he’d seen it happen, his body still flinched from the impossibility of it. Sam closed his eyes and tried to count the seconds, but his mind wouldn’t cooperate, kept replaying what he’d seen, the last words Dean had said to him: _Come get me._

He opened his eyes and looked at his watch—and it took him three glances at it before he realised how little time had passed. Way too little for as long as it had taken to empty the brothel. Maybe…maybe time was different in there. Closer to Hell, or whatever. That would mean Dean had spent longer than ten months as a captive.

It didn’t matter. They had eternity ahead of them to make up for lost time.

Sam had just turned the Impala back on, ready to leave without her, when Ruby materialised in the seat next to him.

“Jesus f—Ruby, it’s been twenty minutes! I could’ve—Dean—what did—”

She bit her bottom lip, hesitant to answer. “He wasn’t there, Sam.”

“Not there? What? You went to the right room?”

“Of course! My knife was there—here, by the way.” The blade was handed over to him, still warm from being under her jacket. “But Dean wasn’t.”

“D-do you mean… His body—” Sam felt like he was going to be sick.

“No body. No Dean. But someone saw him.”

“What? Where?”

“I’ll show you.”

“Ruby, I can’t take you with me. Dean wouldn’t—”

She folded her arms over her chest and glared at him. “Sam, I’m coming with you, or I’m not gonna tell you where he went.”

“What the fuck, Ruby?”

“It’s time to go big or go home, okay? You’re obviously not going to do this without Dean. And you _can’t_ do it without me. And it’s stupid to keep trying to juggle us. Stop trying to compartmentalise everything.”

He stared at her. She stared back.

Then: “Yeah. You know I’m right. And you’re wasting time, _again_. Let’s go find your brother. Nolan said he saw Dean at a gay bar downtown.”

That bar was closed when they got there, and Sam was ready to panic. Dean’s phone went to voicemail. He’d turned off the GPS. It was starting to sleet.

“Calm down,” Ruby said, cleaning her blood from his face with a wet-wipe she found in the glove box. “How many bars can there be in walking distance around here?”

It turned out: so many. Sam buttoned his jacket up over the blackened spatters of ichor from the creatures in the brothel, and they prowled the streets in the Impala. Stopped at any bar or club still open at a quarter to two so he could shove an ID with Dean’s face on it in front of every bartender. No one had seen his brother.

They almost missed the dingy tin sign swinging in the wind—it was the huge dude in a leather vest smoking a cigar in the doorway that had Sam slamming on his brakes.

Sam parked on the sidewalk and flung himself out of the car and towards the entrance.

“We’re closin’, bud,” the big guy said as Sam approached, stepping casually in front of him.

“You the bartender?” Sam asked, the ID already out. “I’m looking for someone.”

The guy sucked on his cigar and nodded. Studied Sam for a moment before squinting at the tiny image Sam had extended in trembling fingers.

“Seen ’im,” the man _tsk’d_. “Left with Roy a while back. Couple others.”

“W-what?” Sam sputtered.

The bartender shrugged and backed up. Rested his hand across his thick waist and Sam had the distinct impression there was a big knife under that vest. “Why?”

“My b-brother,” Sam said, throat closing up suddenly with the truth of it. Nobody wanted to be involved in a lover’s dispute, in one jealous boyfriend chasing down another. “Uh, family emergency. Who’s Roy? Do you know where I can find him?”

“Nah,” was the reply, an obvious lie.

Sam fumbled out his wallet and offered a fifty. “I need to find him.”

“He wants to be found, he’ll come out. I see him again, I’ll tell him you’re lookin’, how about that?” the man said, offended at Sam’s bribe. He turned away, obviously not expecting Sam to come after him. Sam slammed them both into the door, heard glass crack. Had the guy by the throat before he could get to his knife. Whipped them both around and the bartender’s head against the brick wall. Squeezed the guy’s spine, dug into his windpipe.

“Where does Roy live?” he growled. The guy choke-coughed, slurred something. Sam eased up. “ _Where_.”

“East Biddle, up north. D-drives a b-blue truck. Tim’s is red. Fuck! Lemme go, f-fucker.”

Sam took his knees out before releasing him. Found himself back at the car seemingly without even turning to it, without moving his feet. Got in, ignoring Ruby’s smirk. The Impala sprang forward at the first urging, rumbling with something like laughter.

Biddle Street was long and gross. Boarded up windows, graffiti over graffiti over primer over graffiti. No real houses, just shitty brick apartments. Sam hit West Biddle and had to waste time going back the way he came, got turned around when the street looped on itself before finding the other end of East. Past an open-field park and then more and more apartments. Drove for another half an hour before he saw a new blue Chevy truck parked in front of a complex, a little red Nissan pickup tucked up against its rear bumper, a couple other cars parked with some kind of familiarity nearby. Sam stopped the Impala behind the red truck and got out. Ruby made to follow him.

“Stay here,” he said.

“But, Sam—”

“No. Stay here. And get in the back seat.”

“Ugh, whatever. Fine.”

Lights were on in the first floor. The place probably only had four apartments, and the others looked dark, empty or asleep.

It was going to be the last time this ever happened. He’d never let Dean out of his sight again. Sam wasn’t even mad as he picked the lock on the front door. He was worried. What had Dean seen? How much? What had he heard? The things Ruby had said about him…

It was all Sam’s fault, and the idea that Dean might be mad at him, that he’d think Sam was choosing Ruby over him—

The door popped open soundlessly. Sam stepped inside the apartment and closed it behind him. There was a slatted partition that kept him shielded in the entry, but Sam could see through it. Four men were in the living room, grouped around a low-backed couch, all naked but for one in his gold-toes and another with his sweatpants down over his ass. Sam tilted his head, surprised at the quiet—no, there was something wrong with him. He just couldn’t hear them. His body was numb, light, like he was almost drunk.

Dean looked like he felt the same. On his back on that ratty couch, he was the center of attention. He was like a star plucked straight from the night sky compared to the ugliness around him. Naked, his body flexing and sinuous as he tried to accommodate what was being done to him, he was so fucking beautiful Sam’s eyes filled with tears.

One of the guys was crouched over Dean’s head, his knee on Dean’s chest, and it had to hurt. All the guy’s weight bearing down on that knee, a hand on Dean’s forehead to hold him in place so he could shove his dick into his mouth. A bad angle and Dean was heaving for breath, trying not to puke, blowing thick saliva over the guy’s balls, down his own face. His eyes were open but there was nothing to see except hairy thighs and all those cocks. The men jostled each other good-naturedly and shuffled closer like they just had to touch their dicks to the body on the couch. One guy shifted, half-turned, and Sam saw the man between Dean’s legs lift him from the couch by his thighs, try to pull him down onto his dick even more, but because of the knee on his chest, the hand on his head, Dean’s body just stretched, showed those sharp hip bones, hollowed out his belly even more, and the guy was yanking now, impatient. Couldn’t get closer because of the arm of the couch against his own thighs and he wanted to come deep up inside the skinny, pliant whore he’d brought home.

Dean grunted and the cock slipped out of his mouth and the guy laughed and slapped him. No reaction. Dean’s face was flushed from being tipped like he was, from being crushed. From the drugs. Sam glanced at the coffee table. Baggies, lighters, a spoon. Several needles, the remains of snorted-up lines on a cd case.

Another slap and Dean just opened his mouth for a new dick. The guy groped his tattoo, squeezing and twisting at the flesh like he wanted to rip the symbol off of him. Dean only took the cock into his throat, spread his legs wide for the man fucking him.

Still kneeling on him, that guy was jerking off now, thick red dick aiming for Dean’s eye. He was already slimy there, his cheeks glossy from slobber, his stomach slick with come—his own, maybe. Hard and ignored, but he could do it without help, from just the pain—Sam knew that. But this seemed like round two at least for the group. Sam could smell friction-hot condoms, ass and beer-breath.

More sounds registered over the roaring in Sam’s head. Heavy breathing, laughter, crooning. Skin smacking against skin. Two of them were talking to each other. Asking about more dope, booze, where were they going to dump this kid.

“Walt’ll take him home, won’t ya?”

They all snickered, some inside joke and the guy with his dick in Dean’s ass grinned, nodded, hauled on him again, his nails leaving red scratches on his thighs. Dean made a noise, some loud, low moan and Walt was bent over him now, had shoved everyone else away and crawled over the armrest and right up onto Dean, had him curled so only his shoulders and head were on the cushions. A fistful of Dean’s hair in one hand, they were face to face and Dean’s teeth were bared but he wasn’t fighting back, was letting Walt hammer inelegantly into him. The kneeling guy was insistent about coming on Dean’s face, had scooched around, one foot on the ground now and he slapped Dean again, hitting hard. Over and over, until Dean lost that feral look and softened in that way that Sam loved to see, to do to him.

Walt was bracing himself on Dean’s throat, holding himself up away from the other guy’s dick, giving him a clear shot to Dean’s face, but Sam stepped around the partition and caved the back of the guy’s head in. Arm up, palm out, Sam slammed his power, his fury, straight at him and Walt flinched back, gave a disgusted shout, but it happened too fast for him to know it was brains on his face, not his buddy’s poorly-aimed semen. It wasn’t until the dead guy drooped to his knees then tipped forward, slid off Walt’s arm, left a trail of grey matter and blood to the floor, that anyone caught up to what just happened.

Gold-toes was the first to spot Sam. He gaped stupidly as Sam advanced on the group, stuttered something, tongue wagging like his dick. Sam made a fist, flicked his wrist, and that tongue went flying across the room. Sam took Walt’s too, just because. The expression of horror on his face when his tongue hit the back of his teeth, his jaw clenched in concentration as he tried to untangle himself from Dean, off-balance, was very satisfying to Sam, but Walt was hurting Dean. Kneeling on him, digging elbows in, so Sam flung him backwards. He hit the wall in a crumpled heap, had to shake his head like a dog to get his torn tongue from his mouth, and then there was just incoherent, low howls from the men as Sam ripped them apart, appendage and organ, ruptured guts, broke bone and sinew, crushed them so they were breathing blood at the last.

It was over in less than a minute. Just enough time for Dean to fall off the couch. He’d started screaming as soon as he’d seen Sam. Begging. “No! Don’t! Don’t kill them! Stop! _Sam, stop_!”

Still screaming, too drunk, too high to stand, to do anything but huddle on the blood-soaked carpet amidst the still-warm bodies of the men he’d basically killed on purpose— “I saw you!” he shrieked. “I saw you with her! You fucking _lied to me I saw you I saw_ —” Arms around his chest, he was quivering and his screams turned to a frightened wail when Sam stepped over a body with its belly gaping open, intestines in a pile hiding a crusty, shriveled dick. Wailed and tried to duck away, but Sam caught him easily. He hauled Dean up by one arm, away from the couch. Threw him down. Blood was puddled everywhere though, and Dean landed in one so deep it splashed up his arms when he tried to catch himself. Couldn’t do it and fell forward into the mess.

His body was as cold as the corpse Sam had expected to find waiting for him at the motel; Dean hissed like Sam’s touch hurt him when he was jerked onto his back, when Sam straddled and pinned him. Hissed, and squealed: “ _Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica_ —”

Rage tore through Sam like wildfire. He wrapped both hands around Dean’s throat and slammed his head against the floor, snarling, his own voice reverberating in his ears, the sound of a big cat screaming in the distance. 

“Don’t fight me, goddammit!” Sam yelled in his face. “I saved your ass and you can’t even be grateful! I did this for you! All of this—do you think I fucking _want_ to help Ruby? Do you think I want to go to Hell? I should—did you want to stay there, is that it?”

“ _S-stop_.” Dean bucked. Tried to bring his knees up to lever Sam off of him, but Sam couldn’t let go. He just could not. He caught those clawing hands, clamped down on his wrists, and Dean actually tried to bite Sam, and that was so telling. He knew how to get out of a hold like this—he just didn’t want to. He wanted to fight, and he wanted Sam to win.

All Sam wanted was for Dean to know how much he loved him.

“They’re all dead. Everyone at that place, anyone who touched you. The—the fucking _hounds_. I burned them alive, Dean. Alastair—”

Dean screamed when he heard the name, but Sam talked right through the noise.

“I destroyed him. He was a demon, and he was strong, but I ripped him apart.” Fuck, it felt good to say that, to tell Dean he was finally safe. 

Dean’s whole body was shaking, his hands flailing weakly like he was trying to swat Sam away from him, and tears were cutting clean trails through the blood.

“Why the fuck are you crying?” Sam shouted. “Do you miss it, huh? I’m not good enough? I killed Alastair, is that it? I killed your master? You’d rather it have been me?”

Dean wasn’t looking at him, had his head turned to the side, but Sam wanted to see him. Willed his brother to face him, and it worked. Dean’s head was wrenched to the fore. Sam still had his wrists in hand, and the sensation of his desire alone controlling Dean thrilled him. He shifted and tried it again. Forced Dean’s legs wide, around his hips now, folding Dean up under him so he could grind down where it would feel good, where it would hurt Dean the way he liked it. Sam wrapped his power around Dean’s neck, shoulders to chin, and held him still, throat bared.

“Sh-shut your eyes,” Dean stubbornly groaned through the pressure, the pain of Sam’s hold. “Close your eyes, Sammy.”

Sam ignored him, caught up in his own madness. “Do you want me to—do you—do you want to call _me_ master, is that it? Do you need to say it? Will that make you trust me? _Then say it_.” It came out rushed, thoughtless, and Dean squeezed his own eyes shut, all he could do to deny Sam.

What Sam had just said— _call me master_ —Dean was doing it. In some Hellraiser-inspired room lined with metal tables, the bodies on them in all stages of life and decomposition, the floor so black it was like hovering over an abyss. Dean was kneeling in that nothingness and talking to Sam, saying ‘master’ and ‘sir’ and he was so bloody. Clinging to him in layers, slathered thick and crusted, wet and dripping in places. Sam saw Dean’s ribs flashing white through the gouges on his torso as he breathed. Panted, eyes bright and fevered, his hair spiked with gore. Palms out, offering. Sam stepped closer to see, his legs weirdly long and all wrong, and his vision spun out in that nightmare way so that he knew himself and could see himself and that wasn’t _him_ —

His demon form. Horns twisted and sharp, curling back and up and to vicious points. A hellhound’s muzzle, those needled teeth. Arms and legs with extra joints, insect-like and clawed, and he was dragging a cloak of some kind—no, _wings_ , and they were writhing like living things sewn together and it was too fucked up, too horrible to see: better just to look at Dean—

Dean’s skin was wriggling, maggots filling his veins instead of blood, and Sam could smell him: the stench of death, rot running down his legs, pooling putrescence where he knelt, and he wasn’t talking anymore. He couldn’t. He opened his mouth as Sam stopped over him, and he had no tongue. It was where Sam had put it, festering up Dean’s ass, and he’d cut his brother’s throat, too. Dean had held back too much, hadn’t wanted to sound pathetic, so now he could scream, silent and constant, and only Sam would know.

Sam was hard, standing over his brother, and it was something huge and cruel and sharp. It cut Dean when Sam stepped forward, claws clicking on the hot floor. Sliced his cheek open, parted the skin of his neck like a razor blade, slipped in under his flesh and it was sticky-wet inside Dean’s chest and he could just touch his lung with the tip of his cock. Sam fucked him right there in the midst of their shared Hell, and the holes Dean had to offer didn’t matter—Sam made his own, sliding his dick between Dean’s skin and muscle, into the ropey mess of his guts, cracked his ribs to rub against Dean’s heart and there was so much inside him that wasn’t Sam. He wanted Dean as empty as he was, wanted to be so deep that there was no difference; they’d be scraped clean of everything but each other.

He ripped Dean apart with his hands and cock, claws and fangs, holding Dean down without hands on him and he could scream again. _Master_ , he was crying out as Sam tore at him, rebuilt him into something new, something only Sam had ever touched—

“ _Tell me I’m all you want_.”

His own voice startled him, the words gritted out from behind clenched teeth. Skin between them, something more than blood in his mouth. He was naked, slippery and stinging. How had he gotten hurt? Dean was limp under him, loose and sloppy around his cock. Unconscious, Sam’s teeth marks seeping red at his shoulder when he could finally command his body enough to let go. There were more, many more: cock, face, over his heart. Bruises and scratches, rents in Dean’s skin—his mouth torn, lower lip split in the middle, the right corner ripped a few centimeters, like he’d tried to fit his fist into Dean’s mouth or something. They were both fucking _covered_ in blood. Dean’s, but mostly the dead men’s behind them. There was a smear on the dirty beige carpet where Sam had drag-fucked Dean out of the worst of it, but Sam was tacky, stuck to Dean in places.

Sam groaned as he pushed himself up. Slowly; got to his knees, then his feet. An unbelievable headache met him at the top and he had to cover his eyes for a moment or puke. Found his clothes, and Dean moaned weakly while Sam was getting into his boots.

“Dean?” Sam whispered—it sounded like a whisper anyway. Like someone else had said it, really. Far away, not his own voice. Not now. That was the voice of someone still five-eight and left behind, whose imagination got the best of him only when he _wasn’t_ alone, when his big brother was just a nightstand away and Sam could barely see him, a shadow all the other shadows were ganging up on (then they’d come for him), and he’d say Dean’s name like that right before he crawled into bed with him, wanting to protect him—and be protected.

Dean moaned again and twisted onto his side. Vomited, inhaled it, coughed and puked more, and Sam watched, frozen in place. He didn’t know how to move, couldn’t feel his body, and it was only Dean saying his name that snapped him back to reality. The word started out low, was drawn out long into an open-mouthed scream that startled Sam with the volume. Ended high-pitched and painful before Dean coughed, again and again, unable to get himself out of his own mess, and Sam finally lurched forward and dragged Dean up.

“I’m sorry, Dean. I’m sorry. I’m sorry—” he babbled. Got an arm around him and tumbled them both into the bathroom. Slung Dean over the bathtub’s edge when he started retching again, thumped his back through the coughing fits. Held him up while he wiped bile and blood from his face, cleaned the gouges and bites, and Dean was at least tracking Sam’s face with bloodshot eyes.

He mumbled some when Sam dragged him out of the bathroom, and even laughed deliriously as Sam struggled to get him into his clothes. Jacket on, zipped up, his boots on his feet, Dean managed to lift his arm for Sam to slip under, his own arm around Dean’s waist, so Sam could guide them into the frigid night. Somehow the air smelled worse outside than in the blood-soaked apartment.


	32. Chapter 32

Sam wanted to say he was sorry again. Sobbed around the compulsion. Dean reacted to the sound, coughed out, “’S okay, Sammy,” and then sagged, almost went to his knees. Sam hefted him against his hip and grabbed his face. “Dean? Just stay with me, okay? Dean? Can you hear me?”

No answer. Dean stumbled several times, but Sam kept them moving. He wondered what the cocktail in Dean’s system was. Heroin for sure, but what else had he been offered?

Sam could see Ruby in the shadows of the backseat only because he knew to look for her. Saw her jaw drop, then she scrambled over the seat and got the passenger door open for them. Dean collapsed into the Impala, nodded off completely.

“What the fuck, Sam?” Ruby asked, her eyes on him as he bolted around the car and into the driver’s seat. “Did you do this?” she asked, one hand draped down like she wanted to touch Dean, and he pretended not to hear her over the door slamming shut. He peeled out backwards and gunned it.

Sam tried to wake Dean up with one hand and keep the car between the lines with the other. Ruby unexpectedly batted him away from Dean’s shoulder.

“Drive!” she snapped. “And slow down. It’s not like you gotta worry about the FBI coming for you once the smell gets bad back there, but don’t get us pulled over.”

She put her fingertips on Dean’s throat. Sam fully expected Dean to wake up and freak out, that he’d know who— _what_ was touching him. But he just lay there, slumped over. She pressed a little harder against his skin.

“Ruby?”

“He’s barely got a pulse, Sam.” She cupped her palm over Dean’s mouth. Shook her head. “That way,” she said, pointing. “Mercy Medical’s about ten minutes—”

“He can’t wait that long,” Sam said and slammed on the brakes. Ruby grabbed Dean’s jacket to keep him from sliding into the footwell, and “What the fuck, Sam?” seemed to be the mantra of late. He flipped a bitch and launched them a couple blocks back the way they’d just come, then hopped a curb into a ‘loading zone’ and squeezed the Impala along between a concrete wall and a big u-shaped building.

“An animal hospital?”

“Can you get in there?” Sam asked, spinning the car around so he could get out easily the way they came.

“Well, yeah…”

“Find something called Narcan.”

For once, she didn’t argue or question. He caught the beginnings of a frown before she disappeared, leaving the taint of sulphur in the air and on the seat.

In the sallow glow coming from a cobwebbed light on the side of the building, Dean looked dead. His lips were blue, eyes closed, face too-relaxed, even for sleep. Sam hauled him upright and put his cheek to Dean’s mouth. Only the faintest of breaths warmed his skin and he counted ten seconds between each weak exhalation. Sam slapped him, yelled his name, ground his knuckles into Dean’s sternum to elicit some kind of response. Nothing.

He checked Dean’s breathing again. Nothing.

“Dean!” Sam smacked him hard, then put Dean flat on his back. They barely fit with the steering wheel digging into Sam’s leg, but he leaned over Dean and forced his breath into Dean’s lungs. The seat gave under the chest compressions too much to do any good, but Ruby finally came back after a dozen or so repetitions ( _don’t die, Dean, you can’t die, don’t leave me you can’t don’t die)_. She chucked a bag into the backseat and hurried in after it.

“Did you—”

“Gotta go right now, Sam. I don’t know if they had a nanny-cam on those mongrels in there or what but security is coming your way with a quickness.”

“Dean—”

“ _Just go_ , _stupid_! I’ll do the rest.”

He went. They needed to get the fuck out of Baltimore. All their guns and his laptop were in the trunk, Dad’s journal in the glovebox. Whatever else they might have left in the motel was replaceable.

“I didn’t find narco-whatever you said, but there might be a different name—so I just grabbed a bunch of stuff. Needles and shit…” She trailed off and tore into the bag, tossing bottles and flimsy boxes onto the floor as she searched. “Do any of these sound familiar—” Ruby rattled names off little vials until Sam recognised one.

“Naxolone—that one.”

Sam tried not to watch as Ruby filled a syringe from a little glass vial.

“How much?”

“The whole thing. It’s probably a lower dose because it’s for animals—”

“Probably,” he heard her mutter, and, “couldn’t make it any worse.” Leaning over the seat again, she tugged Dean’s jacket up to expose a patch of thin skin near Dean’s hip, stabbed the needle into him and pushed the plunger.

“Nothing’s happening.”

“J-just give him a few seconds.” They were on the freeway. If they could just get a few miles out of range, he could pull over— “Dean? Hey, c’mon. Are you with me? Wake up, man, please—”

Thirty seconds of silence and Sam was grinding his knuckles into Dean’s chest again when Dean finally swallow-coughed and took a shallow breath on his own.

“Dean! Can you hear me? Ruby, do another—”

She was quick to refill the syringe but a full minute passed before Dean took a deeper breath through his nose.

“His eyes opened,” Ruby reported.

Sam reached down and found Dean’s cheek. Slapped him again as he called his name, but it wasn’t until he dug his thumb deep into the muscle behind his collarbone that Dean reacted. A ragged gasp and those dull eyes shut before sliding slowly open again. He looked up at Sam, his chapped lips moving silently.

“Dean, hey! C’mon, stay with me. I-is he—what—” Exits were coming up and Sam had to decide to keep going or dodge off into the city again. Ruby had another shot ready and peered over the seat at Dean.

“Should I—” was as far as she got. Dean gasped again and then came up off the seat, snarling. He had a handful of Ruby’s hair before anyone could react and the sound of his fist hitting her face was shockingly loud right in Sam’s ear. She screamed, furious, and her feet jammed into Sam’s back through the seat as she tried to wrench herself free, but Dean followed her, halfway over the backrest now and throwing punches with maniac strength.

“Dean! Stop! She’s helping you!” Sam had Dean by the side of his jacket and was trying to yank him back, but it was useless: there was nothing he could do but keep from driving the car into the divider.

Dean suddenly yelled, angry and pained, then collapsed over the seat. Hacked like he had something stuck in his throat, and Sam could finally pull him down. He grabbed at his neck, eyes wild and glassy.

“Let him go, Ruby.”

“Fuck that! And fuck him! Fuck you, Dean Winchester, you sorry piece of shit!” Ruby spat. She had two black eyes and bloody teeth, and Dean was still choking.

“Stop it!”

“Fine! Fuck. He needs a fucking leash, Sam. I’ve been saying that forever.”

Dean coughed and groaned when Ruby released him, but started towards her again. Sam snagged him and pulled him over, got his arm around his brother and held on, like they were lovers on a Sunday drive.

“Dean, just stop!”

Whatever crazy strength he’d woken up with was draining away, replaced by head-to-toe trembling. Arching, Dean threw his head back against Sam’s shoulder and let out a wretched whine.

“What—Sam…what…”

“You’re okay, Dean. I’m right here. Everything’s okay. Just relax. Lemme get us off the road, huh?”

“Yeah…” Dean breathed, then raised his hand to wipe his face, or maybe touch Sam, but Ruby’s hair was still wrapped in his fist and he twitched again when he saw it, tried to turn, but Sam clamped his arm around him.

“No, no. Stay here. You’re safe, I promise. Hey—no, don’t go back to sleep! Stay with me! Dean!” But he was drooping again, breath coming in a wet rattle. “Fuck! Ruby!”

She was looking back at him in the rearview, brows drawn together, arms folded across her chest, her own blood smeared down her chin.

“ _Ruby_!”

She made a disgusted noise but started digging through the supplies. Came up with a fresh needle and another vial of naxolone. This one she jabbed into Dean’s neck carelessly and Sam threw a glare at her, but Dean roused quickly, moaned and writhed against Sam.

“Dean, hey. You in there? C’mon, stay awake.”

“Sam, just fucking pull over. Let me drive and _you_ take care of Sick Boy.”

There wasn’t a good counter-argument. No other vehicles were around at this time of night. Sam pulled over and dragged Dean from the car—just in time for Dean to puke. Nose stinging, he held Dean up while he gagged and heaved, and Sam had to stop himself from looking at the gooey puddle too closely. He popped the trunk and let Ruby have at the water first, and her face was healed of Dean’s violence when she was done wiping herself off. He got Dean to drink a little bit, then stuffed him into the backseat. Took a moment to change out of his bloody jeans and find a wrinkled but clean flannel. Ruby shifting the front seat forward so she could reach the pedals made Dean groan again, but he just huddled against Sam, tucked his face into Sam’s chest, shuddering uncontrollably.

“I-I st-still d-don’t u-u-underst-stand h-how you got the d-demons and I g-ot a-a- _angels_ ,” Dean chattered a few minutes after Ruby found US-40 and turned their backs on morning. Sam knew where she was heading.

“Angels?” Sam asked, to keep Dean talking.

“Tessa. R-reapers’re angels. N-never thought ’bout it. A-A-Anna. Anna. She was—and th’other one—h-he… He—w-was he—Sam, d-did—did you _see_ —”

“No, Dean. There was nobody there but monsters,” Sam lied. He honestly didn’t know. Hadn’t thought to ask, to check for captives. Guilt hit him all at once. But Dean wasn’t following his own conversation.

“Nah, I kn- _know_ why,” he giggled and slipped an ice-cold hand under Sam’s shirt.

“Fuck,” Sam hissed but Dean just snuggled closer to him.

“Fucked,” he mused and sagged against Sam.

“Hey, no, wake up. You said—I heard you, um, talking to—to Tessa? About Lucifer. What was that, Dean? Do you remember?”

Ruby had been carefully ignoring them but Sam didn’t miss the way her spine stiffened when he named the fallen archangel.

“Prom dresses,” Dean mumbled, and something else.

“What?”

“ _Hurts_.”

Dean was probably as sober as he’d been in—who really knew at this point. Sam scrabbled around in the footwell and came up with lorazepam on the second try. He gave Dean two, dropped them into his torn mouth. Ruby flashed him a look in the rearview like that wasn’t the best idea.

“Dean. Lucifer?”

“Mm. Yep. N-not gonna rule…after Lilith. Lucifer’s gonna j-jump your shit. War on Earth. W-wipe out the d-demons. People first. Then… And take out Heaven. Me and you—” Dean made a fist, the skin over Sam’s belly caught in it, nails digging in. Sam didn’t care. “Sammy—they w-want _me_ to be an angel. _Me._ F-f-f—retards.”

“That’s not how it works, dumbass,” Ruby blurted, annoyed, then jolted when Dean kicked her hard through the seat.

“Stop,” Sam admonished. “What do you mean?” he asked her.

“People don’t become angels. Angels take vessels just like demons do.”

“Gotta say ‘yes’,” Dean asserted.

“ _No_ , you _don’t_ ,” Ruby shot back. “They’re more powerful than most demons. Why would they _ask_?”

“S’not what Tessa said.”

“Why would this ‘Tessa’ tell you anything?” Ruby sneered, dragging her fingers through her hair, pulling out clumps Dean had ripped free.

Dean shifted around, pushing on Sam until he got what he wanted—them sideways, like they used to sleep when they were kids. Only Sam was the one supporting Dean this time. “The one that got away,” he mumbled when he was more comfortable.

“Got away?” Sam prompted.

“That t-truck hit us. T-boned. Guess I didn’t make it.”

“No, that’s not—Dad brought you back, Dean.”

“Yeah, _back_.”

“Cool story, bro,” Ruby interrupted. “So what? She come around for a second date, or what?”

Dean tensed against Sam’s chest, but he had no fight left in him. Goosebumps roughened his skin, and Sam brushed sweaty hair back from Dean’s eyes as he twisted between Sam’s legs.

“Lookin’ a little green around the gills there, Dean,” Ruby mused, watching them in the rearview.

“Least I know _you’re_ gonna die,” Dean said, panting like he was in labour.

“What? Shut up.” Ruby rolled her eyes and took a right-hand exit off the interstate.

“Lucifer’s got a hate-on f-for demons,” Dean groaned. “You’re _worse_ than p-people to him. Must be _nuts_ thinkin’ you’re special.”

“ _What_ are you fucking _talking_ about? Just—Sam, he’s really fucked up.”

“It’s a trap, Sammy,” Dean muttered against Sam’s shirt.

“What is?” he asked, kissing the words surreptitiously along Dean’s hairline. He smelled like other men: scented laundry soap and Axe body spray, cigarettes and cheap beer. And like blood, the sharp coppery tang of it.

“ _Lilith_ ,” was the answer, whispered, Dean’s gaze cutting to Ruby.

“Look who showed up late to class,” Ruby mocked.

“F-f-fucking _bitch_!”

“Dean—”

“No! No. Sam. You do this an’ it’s all over. Armageddon. Lucifer will r-ride you hard, Sammy. Make you w-watch. You’re not gonna be b-boy-king of Hell, okay? You’re gonna be Lucifer’s meatsuit and he’s gonna d-d-destroy the world. I gotta…I gotta stop it.”

Sam’s heart was pounding for some reason. “Is that what Tessa said?”

“Mm. Angels tried to come an’ get me. I remember. I was dead, and they came. I dunno why… Ruined already. Killed for them. Sam? Sam?” Dean was push-pawing at him, trying to lift himself but couldn’t.

“Dean, it’s okay. Calm down.”

“It’s my fucking fault!” Dean gasped out. “I broke the Seal.”

“The first Seal,” Sam murmured, “I know. I know, Dean. It doesn’t matter.”

“An’ then they just let me out,” Dean said, like it had some significance Sam should pick up on. Ruby responded first, though.

“And it’s a good goddamn thing Sam came to get you, huh? You were one hot poker away from going full-demon yourself. If I’d known how incredibly lame you were gonna be, I wouldn’t have bothered looking for you.” She shrugged when Sam gave her a dirty look in the mirror. “Sorry, Sammy. But here we are, babysitting your dopesick brother when you should be cramming for your final.”

“N-no—oh shit—”

“Ruby, pull over!”

Gravel crunched under the Impala’s wheels. Dean was heaving behind his hand, and Sam barely managed to get the door open for Dean to tumble out of before he started puking again. Sam scrambled after him. He heard the driver’s side door squeak, but Ruby only stood there, hands in her pockets, while Sam held Dean up.

“They let me out!” Dean snarled, flinging bile off his palm. He backed up a few steps and slipped through Sam’s hands, down to the ground. Sitting on his heels, he whined but shook off Sam’s attempt to help him up. “They needed me, so they let me go.”

“If you’re so fucking important, why would Heaven send just one angel to try to rescue you?” Ruby huffed.

Dean gagged and spit. Sam could see teeth marks under the collar of his open jacket in the light of a distant streetlamp. “He was the only one _left_. Tessa said there’s a w-war in Heaven. God’s gone and the angels are fighting.”

“Why are they fighting?” Sam asked. He didn’t want to, was weirdly content to let Dean rant and have Ruby pick at him, like this argument somehow didn’t have everything to do with him. When he said the words, he only just heard them. Didn’t think, couldn’t feel; they just came out, like someone else was prompting him to speak.

“Pickin’ sides. Turnin’ on each other.”

Sam frowned, trying to follow along. “Some of them… _want_ Lucifer free, is what you’re saying?”

Dean nodded, fighting to keep his eyes open, arms wrapped around himself like he was the coldest he’d ever been.

“This is fucking stupid,” Ruby grouched. She took a step towards them—towards Sam. Stopped short when he squatted down next to Dean. “C’mon, Sam. What the fuck is he even _talking_ about, huh? Angels fighting each other, some of them trying to raise Lucifer. That’s—that’s crazy. Don’t you think I would _know_ if there were angels on the sidelines, calling shots? For one fucking thing, I wouldn’t even _be here_. Angels are like, _scary_ scary, okay? I don’t believe—”

“Fuck what you believe.” Dean slumped against Sam, his body and breath steaming in the cold. “I know, why don’t we ask God what’s going on?” A weird laugh and he sort-of nuzzled into Sam, but Sam still couldn’t get him off the ground. “I mean, God wouldn’t let all this happen, right? So, like—” he hiccuped and retched again “—okay. Hey! Hey, _God_! Please, could you just fucking help us out here?”

If Dean hadn’t been so sincere-sounding, if Sam’s entire body hadn’t flamed with embarrassment to think that God was watching this whole time, Sam might have found it funny how Ruby twitched back towards the car, a little wild-eyed, as if she could hide from or escape the attention Dean was calling down on them. …But nothing happened. Dean scuffed his fingers together in a weak snap. “Ri-i-ight, because God’s outta the picture. Tessa said nobody’s seen ’im in like, _forever._ It’s j-just us, some angel-dicks and your demon-skank girlfriend, Sammy. An’ you know what? _Fuck God._ ”

“Dean—”

“Sam, I never had it like you do, y’know?”

“Had what?”

Dean groped for his hand and finally let himself be lifted, kitten-weak and eyes closed. “Faith. It’s not in me like it’s in you, an’—why would this happen to _you_? Fuckin’ _God_ wants you to go to Hell? The fuck? Me, yeah okay—” Dean flung a hand at the black sky, the low-heavy snow clouds, middle finger up. “Fine. Fuck you too, God. If you ever need me, don’t come knockin’.”

He was bleary-eyed and crying but gave Sam a smile when the dome light came on, and Sam helped him into the backseat.

“It’s not gonna be like that, Sam,” he said so only Sam could hear. Not Ruby, standing behind him with her back turned, unhelpful and uncaring.

“Like what? Here, are you cold? I’ll get you that army blanket out of the back.”

“There’s no love in Hell. There’s not. She doesn’t love you,” he said, and Sam froze. “She can’t. No love, no compassion, no loyalty. We won’t be together, not like…like this. What h-happened—” Dean licked at his ripped lip and Sam was the one that looked away because he knew now that Dean had seen it too. Had been with him in that vision…dream? Nightmare, whatever—Dean had really been there with him, on his knees, something else, something dark and yeah, maybe evil, but he’d been there _with_ Sam. For Sam. “That wasn’t real. That _was_ you an’—and me. But it won’t be like that.”

Sam looked up at him. Leaned in and kissed him, and Dean hesitated for a second before he pressed himself into it. His hands came up around Sam’s neck, held on, and Sam moved forward, pushing Dean back until he was resting against the door. Waited until Dean was ready to let go, had had his fill, then Sam said, “You don’t know that, Dean. That’s not what Ruby says, and if that’s what Tessa told you—how do you even know whose side she’s on? You said the angels are at war. Maybe she’s trying to mess things up.”

“Sammy—”

“Dean, just get some rest okay? We’ll find a place to hole up tonight, and we’ll work it out tomorrow.”

Sam found a park-and-ride lot about forty minutes outside of Ilchester and wedged the Impala in a tucked-away corner spot. Exhaustion hit him hard almost as soon as he killed the engine. He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against his hands still on the wheel.

“You okay there, Sam?” He shook his head as Ruby brushed hair back from his face. Sensed her turning to look at Dean, who’d been sleeping comfortably for the last ten minutes under the road-dusty wool blanket Sam had retrieved from the trunk.

“What was he talking about?” she asked, close to him now. “Not gonna be like what?”

Sam sighed and lifted his head, his whole body feeling like he was going down the biggest drop on a rollercoaster. He didn’t want to talk about it. Didn’t want to _talk_. He looked over his shoulder at Dean: asleep, breathing evenly, but he shifted, shivered, and Sam could see his breath. He took his coat off, forcing Ruby away from him for a second, and covered Dean with it. As soon as he was back in his seat, Ruby was right there against him again. “What won’t be real?” she urged.

“I killed everyone in that house, Ruby,” he said, and it didn’t even distress him to say it. He’d do it again. “I murdered them, and then I hurt Dean. I didn’t mean to do that, but I didn’t know it was real. I saw… I _went_ somewhere. Dean was there too, but we weren’t… I don’t know.”

Ruby put her hand on his arm, walked her fingers down until she could curl them under his sleeve, get to his skin. “What, like a hallucination?”

“Yeah, but he was in it. Like, he was _there._ He saw it, same as I did.”

“What was it? It looks like you tried to rip him open.”

Sam shut his eyes and it was waiting: fangs and claws, screeching and screaming, blood—so much blood, and Dean-but-not-Dean, something he’d never been but that was still him somehow—

He opened his eyes and looked at her, and she was just Ruby. No black smoke, hissing poison, nothing feral and sharp—just a beautiful girl, pale and wide-eyed, biting at one of her soft lips, her small hand warming his skin. He shrugged but couldn’t look away from her.

“Hell, I guess. If that’s even possible.”

And because he was staring, he saw her try not to blink, to not act surprised. Saw her give up on it. “You were in a shared Hell? Only special cases can do that.”

“Special cases?”

She shook her head, scratched lightly at his skin with her nails. “I mean, that’s just what I heard. I dunno. Um.”

Sam swallowed hard before admitting, “It’s not the first time. Not so intense, but… Why—I mean, how could that even happen?”

“Maybe it’s because you share blood.”

Sam almost jerked his hand out of hers, startled that she could know that—that he’d been swallowing Dean’s blood almost as much as hers. Flashed on all the times he’d sucked on Dean’s bloody lip or licked it from his body, made it happen just so he could. But that’s not what she meant—brothers, they were brothers.

“Maybe,” he managed. He felt fucking delirious. “I gotta—I need—” He couldn’t get the words out, the falling sensation worse now. He gritted, “You don’t sleep. Watch him. Ruby, if—”

She was the one to pull away. “Don’t fucking threaten me, Sam. I’ve had just about enough abuse tonight. I’ll watch his dumb ass, just—” she shook her head and looked out into the nothing beyond the windshield “—get some rest.”

He didn’t remember falling asleep, only that he woke up cold. His hands ached, his stomach felt filled with burnt coffee grounds. He tried to turn to check on Dean, and nearly cried out at the stiffness in his neck and the way his head throbbed. The sound of the seat creaking under him was like an iceberg cracking apart, like cannons going off.

“Oh fuck,” he groaned and winced when he heard a soft slithering sound. Cringed when something _searing_ touched his face. Ruby whispered his name but might as well have screamed it at him. The sun was barely up, he could tell that much. Everything else was coming in disconnected, random.

“Shh, baby. Lemme warm you up, okay? Shh. Deep breath, Sammy.”

“D-Dean?”

“He’s fine. Sleeping. C’mon.”

She moved him, practically crouching in the footwell. Got him stretched out as much as he could be. Pulled his legs open and crawled between them and then onto him. Laid herself over him and fuck, she _was_ warm. He put his arms around her, canted his hips up to be closer. She breathed out as he crushed her, but she didn’t try to stop him—actually wriggled up so she could tuck her face into his neck.

“Hush, baby,” she soothed, and Sam was making noise, wasn’t he? Mewling and huffing, near-to agony and still half-unconscious. “I’ll warm you up.” Her actions were contrary; she had his flannel open, his t-shirt raked up, her hands on his chest, kneading like he liked. “Who’s gonna take care of you when you rule Hell? Gonna have your hands full, won’t you? No time for me or your dummy brother. Who’s gonna make sure _he_ doesn’t do anything stupid?” she teased. “Trusted me to find him, watch him sleep—what else would you trust me with? Want me to help him find the First Blade? Can I take care of him, hm? Like you would?”

Her kisses between words were warm, butter-soft and salty-sweet. He opened to them, to her tongue and the blood dripping from it.

“Your own little ‘Entourage’, me and Dean. You want us, all you have to do is think it and we’ll be right there for you. Whatever you want. Watch us—or make us watch you. I wanna see it: you and him. Would you let me in between you two? Fuck, Sammy, I can barely handle you by yourself.” She snickered as she said it, her lips crimson and her teeth white and sharp as she bared them when Sam put his hands around her throat. Wanted her to stop talking; too late for him not to see it, though. The things they could do to each other, with each other, the three of them…

“I saved him,” Ruby mouthed. Lunged forward to kiss him again and he loosened his grip, let her. “I saved you, too. Even before—Lilith, she let me out. She wanted me to kill you, prove my loyalty to her. But the more I watched you the more I liked you, the closer I felt to you. I betrayed her. Trust me, Sammy. We’re doing the right thing.”

He held her tiny wrists but didn’t stop her when she sat up and unbuttoned his pants. Hard already and he knew she could smell Dean and old blood when she pulled him free, but she only hummed happily and stroked him. Both hands and yeah, she needed both. An extra pair on him wouldn’t crowd things. Dean would like her, if he gave her a chance. They had a lot in common. It was one of the reasons Sam warmed to her in the first place. She said to him things Dean would say. Encouraged and chastised him, teased him and argued with him, just like Dean would have.

She let out a pleased gasp when he opened her pants and jammed his hand into them. Into her, fingers hooked and digging deep. She arched, inviting, and her head dropped back, her long hair tickling his thighs when he slid his other hand up under her shirt. Lifted it, exposed her perfect tits, nipples hard before he could even touch them. She sighed, and then twitched. Sparked. Piss-yellow under her skin, lighting up her bones, and something like static electricity bit through Sam’s palms. Head still back, the surge lit up the roof of the Impala for a second—she didn’t even have time to look at him again, or touch him. Her right arm came forward to try, grasping, but the hilt of her knife buried in her rib cage blocked the move. She went limp, slumped backwards, and Sam was too shocked to catch her, let her fall on his legs. The blade didn’t go with her. Dean kept hold of it. Watched Sam with dull eyes, his grip white-knuckled around the hilt of the now-bloody knife.

They stared at each other. Sam was aware of movement out in the parking lot. Heard a car door slam somewhere not-too-far-off. Ruby’s body shifted, slipped off Sam’s lap, and Dean’s gaze flickered towards her but settled on Sam’s dick. When Dean finally moved, the knife flashed and Sam flinched, but Dean only tossed it down on the crumpled body and reached for Sam with both hands.

Like a wave to the shore, Sam went to him. Kicked his legs to untangle himself from Ruby and Dean had him by the shirt and his hair, hurting him as Sam dragged himself over the seat and onto Dean. Flat on his back, legs bent, thighs pinching Sam’s hips. There was no way Sam could get them naked—if the dead girl in the front seat didn’t draw attention, flashes of his ass through the fogged windows definitely would. Sam ground his teeth when a hysterical laugh boiled up his throat. What were they _doing_? What was _he_ going to do? Ruby had been his anchor, the one reminder that he didn’t have to turn evil when it was all said and done. She was living proof that he could hold onto himself: his soul, his humanity, his love.

“’M not sorry,” Dean croaked, glaring, and Sam could feel Dean’s heart pounding under his palm. He pushed down, just because. Those delicate ribs flexed and dipped with the pressure and Dean sighed, forced to. His eyes went round and his mouth opened, a quivering hole that Sam filled with his tongue. They both probably tasted horrible: blood and bile and hunger, but god Sam needed this.

Sam didn’t answer him. Found he couldn’t. He had nothing to say. Dean wasn’t sorry, of course not, and Sam _was_ angry. Scared and angry. He didn’t have a plan for this. However he’d threatened Ruby in the past—and yeah, okay maybe he’d compartmentalised it—he’d always pictured Ruby there with him when he killed Lilith, when he said yes…and Dean was there too. Both of them, supporting him. And Dean had just fucked it all up instead of helping him work out how it could be the way he’d wanted it.

“Should get outta here,” Dean gasped. Had to twist his face away to breathe, but he bucked up against Sam—he wasn’t hard, but that wasn’t surprising. He still wanted, though. Something, anything, just like always.

Sam met Dean’s movement with his own. Put all his strength and fury behind it. Slammed his hips into Dean’s hard enough Dean cursed and put a hand against the door, trying to protect the top of his head. Sam did it again and fuck, was Dean really just bones? He was so sharp against Sam’s dick. It hurt them both, and Sam smiled when Dean did exactly as expected. Put both hands on the door, tucked his chin against his shoulder, loosened those clenching thighs, and relaxed under him.

“Sammy.”

He wasn’t asking for anything. Just saying it. Maybe wanting Sam to remember who he was, as if in going from one to the other so quickly, Sam’d mix up him and Ruby. Sam nipped Dean’s cheek then caught his mouth when Dean tossed his head. Swirled the last taste of Ruby’s blood into him with his tongue and Dean moaned. Tried hard to hold himself still as Sam pounded against him. Fabric burning, buttons cutting him, but it was worse for Dean. Made him cry again, stutter a little scream that Sam clapped a hand over. Dean swallowed behind it, drinking down saliva and blood and the taste of Ruby on Sam’s fingers. The car was rocking now and Dean was fighting him. Not because he wanted to get away—he just couldn’t help it. Sam could see it in his eyes: wanted to hold still, wanted to give Sam whatever he needed, but it _hurt_.

Good.

Sam came with the thought, grinding down hard enough to pop Dean’s balls, if that was possible. Might be, with the way Dean thrashed, red-faced and those eyes begging him to stop, he couldn’t take it—

It was almost impossible to crawl backwards from the car once he managed to get the door open, but he did it without falling out on his ass. Stood on shaky legs and looked around. Cars were moving in the distance, in and out of the lot. A few people walking around, but no one looked in his direction. Sam stretched and shivered: everything was frozen, and the sky, the clouds, the sun through them, were all white. The ground too, in places. Ice on the roof of the car, slick under his fingers when he leaned in to look at Dean. Come was drying on his jeans, his concave belly shining as Dean twitched weakly. He’d brought one of his arms down to cover his eyes so only his pouting, bloody mouth was visible. He bit at it, sucked his lips in when Sam touched him, bent one of his legs so the door could be closed.


	33. Chapter 33

Sam popped the trunk and dug around until he found a spare duffle bag, musty-smelling, knife holes poked through the nylon. Big enough to fit a full-length shotgun. He checked over his shoulder again: no one was watching. Dean didn’t move when Sam opened the driver’s side door. Was hiding from what he’d done, Sam figured. Wasn’t sorry, but didn’t want to face it. Typical.

Getting Ruby’s body into the bag was difficult, but he made it work. Had her folded up, knees to chest, arms covering her still-bare breasts. He couldn’t help himself: one last gesture, he combed her hair out of her mouth and half-closed eyes, tucked it behind her ear. She was so beautiful… The dead girl was, anyway. He hunched his shoulders and looked away. Zipped the bag up and dragged it out of the car. Tried not to seem like he was moving a body when he slung it into the trunk.

“Are you staying back there?” Sam asked when he was behind the wheel again. His throat was sore and his stomach still ached, but he didn’t want to be alone. He softened his tone, turned around. “Dean. C’mon.”

Dean peeked up at him from under his arm. He looked terrible in the stark light of morning, terrible and far away. How far away was Hell, anyway? Was it just a step to the side; could he turn his head and see Dean _here_ whenever he needed to? Here…because as hard as he’d tried, Sam hadn’t been able to line up events, timewise. He’d hoped to have located the First Blade by now, or fucking figured _anything_ out to get Dean into place, to—to make sure Dean was always at his side. Ruby had been willing to help, but Dean had just ruined that. They’d both wasted time and opportunities, but there was nothing to do except keep going.

“Th’fuck are we?” Dean groaned.

“Parking lot outside Baltimore. Catonsville, I think. Come up here.”

Dean eventually did, but he made it into a production. Groaned more, kicked pill bottles around, stretched, winced, staggered. Pissed on the Impala’s back tire, had to take two swipes at the door to get it open, and dropped like a sack of stones into the passenger seat but only after inspecting it closely, as if Ruby had left demonic, sulphury snail-trails on it. He didn’t try to avoid Sam though. Slammed the door shut, then scooted over towards his brother, shivering even though he was sweating profusely.

“Do you feel sick?”

“Yeah. And disgustingly sober.”

“You almost died,” Sam snapped, pulling out onto the highway.

“I thought that was the point.”

Sam threw him a dirty look, but Dean didn’t see it. Was staring down at his hands in his lap. There was a smear of blood on his right thumb.

It still didn’t feel real yet. “She saved you,” Sam said, an echo of her, mostly just a hum in his throat. Saw that bloody hand clench into a fist and pressed on anyway. “She could have helped you, Dean. With the First Blade; do what…whatever needed to be done. She found you for me. More than once. She’s all I had—”

“Oh, that’s real fuckin’ nice to hear.”

“I-I meant—she kept my hopes up, this whole time… Since you left.”

“I didn’t _leave_.”

“No, I know that. I mean—”

“Yeah, I know what you mean, Sam.”

Anger was moving through Sam like a current. He didn’t want to give into it, but Dean was making it really hard. “If you know so much, what the fuck do we do now, huh? Ruby—Ruby’s _dead_ , and we still have to kill Lilith and if we don’t catch her in a few days, I don’t know if I’ll be able to find her!”

“And you’re gonna kill her.”

“I have to! Don’t you understand that?”

When Dean said, “Bobby found the Colt,” it took Sam several seconds to comprehend the words, even though some part of him instantly rejoiced; giddiness and relief made his eyes burn, his ears buzz.

“He—wh-what? He did? How—how do you know that?”

“Uh, he fuckin’ texted me?”

“So, he has it?”

Dean finally lifted his head and looked at Sam. He looked like he had two black eyes—bruised, Sam corrected himself, as if the difference was important. “No. He knows where it is, though. Some second-rate minion has it. He’s trying to make a deal without, y’know, making a deal. Doesn’t have any fuckin’ bullets anyway, but we could wait. Work out something and take Lilith down later.”

That ember of hope inside Sam fizzled and died. “We can’t _wait_. Wait for what? For Lilith to destroy the entire planet?”

Dean opened his mouth, but Sam had heard this all already. “ _No._ No, Dean. It—it doesn’t matter, okay? None of it. Not what Tessa told you might happen, not—”

“What about _you_ , huh? You really believe that shit Ruby was spewing? That’ll you’ll be good, that you won’t be a bad demon, or whatever?” Dean scoffed. “Yeah, because you’re the fucking picture of purity, aren’t you?” As if they weren’t in a fight, Dean slouched down and put his shoulder against Sam’s. “That wasn’t one of your lollipop and candy cane dreams, Sammy.”

Sam’s toe slipped off the gas pedal, and Dean was side-eyeing him. He’d honestly hoped Dean—what, wouldn’t remember what had happened, hadn’t seen him…like that. Wrong. Demonic. He licked his dry lips. “Y-yeah, yeah, okay. You’re right. I didn’t… I was out of control. I admit it. But you… Dean, what they were doing… I was scared and, and… Dean, that was—I couldn’t take it. That’s the worst side of me, okay? If that’s what you wanted to see—what you wanted to happen… Was it some kind of test, or something? I mean, why did you _do_ that?”

“You did it first.”

“I didn’t—that’s not—no. No, it’s not the same. And, and anyway, she wanted you to be with me! She knows I’m stronger with you. She knew it was the best thing for me—it _is_ the best thing. For us to be together. Dean, if you’re with me, I’ll be okay.”

“Oh, come _on_.”

“What?”

Dean scrubbed his face over his hand, sucked in a hurt breath when he did and there was more blood on his fingers after; from his ripped mouth, from the hole Sam’s canine had put in his cheek. “Nothin’, Sam. It’s—yeah. Fine. I need coffee.”

Sam had to smile, and the tension eased in the car. “Yeah, same. A shower would be great, too.”

There wasn’t anywhere for them to get either of those things. Nothing but houses and trees outside, a school. Then rural landscape gave way completely to the forest. Skeletal branches and muddy roots for miles, and Dean was warm and comfortable against him; nodding off again.

Sam nudged him. “Hey. You okay? Stay awake, huh? How much did you take, anyway?”

“A lot.” Dean cleared his sinuses for show.

“I want you to stop.”

He could actually feel Dean rolling his eyes. “Dude, can’t you ever let shit go? You’re like a dog with a bone, I swear.”

Let it go? Isn’t that what he’d been doing this whole time? Letting Dean’s addiction slide, allowing Ruby to string him along with only half the information available. Relinquishing his _future_. Sam sighed and put his arm around Dean, steering the Impala along the curving, one-lane road with his thumb, the rising sun in the corner of his eye.

“Hold on.” Dean jolted up and thumbed over his shoulder. “What was that? Some big ol’ house.”

It was a big, old house. A Victorian summer home, Sam didn’t supply, doubting Dean would remember driving him around for a school history project one year so Sam could take pictures of different styles of architecture the immigrating masses had built. This one had been refurbished into a bed and breakfast.

“Dean, this isn’t really our style, you know? Besides, it’s probably expensive.”

Dean fished into his jacket and pulled out a roll of twenties and fifties. “Good thing my sweet ass is worth paying big bucks for,” he said, waving the money at Sam. Sam snatched it from him, ignoring Dean’s smirk. He counted six hundred dollars. He crushed the bills in shaking hands.

“C’mon, Sammy. Let’s treat ourselves for a day before we go check out St. Mary’s.” When Sam didn’t move or say anything, Dean took the money from him, straightened it back out and tucked it in Sam’s front pocket. “That’s where we’re going, isn’t it? That’s what’s at the end of this road? We’ve got a few days, and I bet there’s bran muffins in there. You love those fuckin’ things. Maybe even a bed big enough your flippers won’t hang off the end. Huh? How ’bout it.”

Sam moved like a ghost, flitting from one spot to the next, not really sure how he made it out of the car, to the front door of the house; someone was there to meet him just inside and she looked at him like _he_ was something supernatural.

“On a wild goose-chase?” the woman said, a forced smile on her face.

“Huh?” Sam just stood there, the money heavy and hated in his pocket, not even really seeing his surroundings; only that shabby apartment, Dean spread out like an animal ready to be dissected.

“You’re a hunter—”

“Uh—”

“We get a few of you this time of year,” the woman airily claimed, “and don’t you worry about the dirt. Geese or crow?”

“What? Oh, uh. Both? My…my brother—”

It didn’t matter what he said after that. Despite his disheveled appearance, cash up front and a little extra for food and coffee in their room won the innkeeper over.

“Gaudy.” Dean turned in a small circle in the incredibly blue room. “I like it.” He meandered over to a table, picked up a little paper. “Wi-fi. Laundry service! That’s worth the extra money, right there. Laundromats are fuckin’ skeevy. Where’s my bag?”

“Wherever you left it.” Dean made a face, then sat down on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, head in hands. It had probably taken all he had to get upstairs without collapsing. He had nothing left in him, and yeah, that was weirdly satisfying to Sam. Dean only existed because Sam had made it so, and that’s the way it would be from now on. Sam had to do what he had to do, but once Lilith was dead—once Sam had all the powers of Hell at his command—he’d do whatever was necessary to get Dean at his side. Then he wouldn’t have to worry about him, and they could take care of each other after that: the way it was supposed to be. No more of this… Sam’s lip twitched, almost into a sneer. Was he resentful? Why shouldn’t he be? It was as if Dean had done every last thing he could think of to fuck with Sam since Sam had peeled him out of that rubber suit. Like having a goddamned baby on his hands.

It wasn’t his fault, Sam reminded himself, drawing in a steadying breath through his nose. Dean hadn’t asked to be broken. And it wasn’t shameful that he had been. Everyone had their weaknesses, their soft spots. It had taken who knows how many people to find Dean’s, and then the weight of Hell to really grind him down. Sam would never know what that was like. Not even in going to Hell would he really know. He wouldn’t be tortured there, all of Hell’s focus on him, piercing and awful with its purpose.

No, it wasn’t Dean’s fault, what had happened to him. And his way of dealing with it hadn’t been wrong. But he _had_ done things to hurt Sam, intentionally. Lying about drugs and sneaking off. Letting himself be used. Killing Ruby. Now Sam was going to have to do things he had hoped to avoid, to let Ruby do for him. He was going to have to depend on Dean and Dean alone to take care of himself until Sam could save him.

When he scooped up Dean’s chin with his fingers, Dean made a little noise that went right to Sam’s cock like a kiss. Sam could see Dean’s heartbeat in the veins just under the translucent skin around his eyes, making those dusty freckles throb. His mouth was too heavy with bruises to keep closed; his bottom lip sagged helplessly, showing off perfect teeth and pale gums Sam wanted to run his tongue over. When he brought his other hand up, Dean sucked back a gasp that made his nostrils flare, a frightened-deer response, but Sam touched him anyway. That horror-show mouth, his bitten cheek.

“I wish I could heal you.”

Dean shook his head, barely there.

“If you were a…a Knight, you could heal yourself. I know I hurt you, but when we’re there together—”

“Yeah, Sam, I know. It’d be good. It was good, you just fucked me up a little.” Dean tried for a smile but Sam felt his jaw clench.

“What is it?”

“Do you remember—you said we could change things. In Hell. Is that really what you want? I mean…is that what you’re going to actually _do_?” Then he stiffened, closed his mouth all the way, prepared for Sam to hit him, and fuck, did he want to. So fucking tired of being questioned, sick of Dean’s doubts. And he was sick of being nice to Dean, because it never seemed like Dean wanted that.

His fingertips dug into Dean’s jaw, nails biting through thin, pale skin, and he used a handful of Dean’s greasy hair to yank his head all the way back. Dean stared impassively at him, even when Sam got right in his face. “What do I have to do to make you trust me, huh? I can’t keep explaining myself to you. I can’t make you understand. You know what, if it’s not me, it’s gonna be someone else, eventually. Another hunter, a fucking witch, whatever. Someone’ll take Lilith down, and are they gonna be—are they gonna understand it the way we do?”

Dean wanted to answer him, but Sam was edging on furious and contemplated just—not hearing it. He’d brought the bag up with their bondage stuff in it—the ball gag, ropes. Maybe if Dean just shut the fuck up for a little while he’d think about the situation and come around, but Dean pulled hard, left blood under Sam’s nails wrenching free.

“Sam, I don’t want you to do this. It’s not gonna be like you think!”

“Tough shit, Dean. You can’t stop me.”

“Sammy—”

The way Dean said it (‘ _don’t fight with Dad, don’t be so stubborn, don’t pretend to ignore me, I’m sorry—_ ’) made Sam step back, made him turn away so he wouldn’t have to see the accompanying look on Dean’s face. He said, “How about this, huh? If you don’t like it, you don’t think I’m doing a good job, you’ll be right there to fix it, won’t you? To remind me what we need to do. You won’t let me lose control.”

“When are you ever not my responsibility?”

Sam spun around just to scowl at Dean. “Yeah, well, who’s been taking care of _you_ lately?”

Dean’s shoulders fell and that defiant face dropped. He brought his knees up so he could sit cross-legged on the bed. Nodded, almost imperceptibly, and Sam sighed.

“I’m sorry. Dean? I’m sorry, I am. I know you’ve been trying to deal with what happened, and that’s all it is. And I know you’ll get better—and if this wasn’t happening—all this with Lilith and Hell and, and—you’ll come out of it. And that’s… That’s all I’m asking of you, I guess. To be there for me, to give me time to adjust. _Trust_ me. I won’t go darkside, not with you around.”

“If Lucifer has your soul, we won’t be together, will we?”

Sam threw his hands up. “Do you have a better plan than the one I’ve been working on for a goddamned year, do you? _Do you_?” he hissed. Dean said nothing, head still down. “Yeah, you _don’t_. And we don’t have any fucking time to come up with a new one, so we’re doing it my way and I’m telling you right now, I need your help. I need _you_. If you don’t wanna be there for me, then fine! But that’s on you _._ ”

Quietly, more to his limp hands than to Sam, Dean asked, “What if we change, Sam? What if Hell fucks us all up? What if—we won’t feel like we feel now. We won’t give a shit about each other! Don’t you get that? You’ll mean nothing to me!”

That staggered Sam. Sucked his rage down like a sinkhole opening up under him. “How can—don’t say that to me. Nothing will _ever_ make me not love you, Dean. I guess you don’t feel the same.”

Dean looked up, and he was glaring this time. “It’s not about my _feelings_ , Sam. It’s about what Hell will do to us. Demons don’t care about anything!”

“Ruby—”

“Sam, no—listen to me.”

“Whatever. Tessa tell you all that, huh? Why didn’t she stick around and say it to me herself?”

“She was trying to warn us. Give us a second chance.”

Sam barked a laugh. “Us? _You_ started it, you might want to at least help stop it.”

“Wow.”

“We don’t have time to sugar-coat it, do we? And why would she trust you more than her own kind?”

“She said this wasn’t the—the natural order of things. It wasn’t what was intended.”

“Intended? Dean, you’re the one who said God’s out of the picture. That we’re alone, no help but what we can do ourselves. I don’t believe that. I have faith this _is_ God’s plan for us.”

Dean shook his head, and Sam didn’t think he’d ever seen that look on his face before. He—he was fucking _desperate_. “I can’t… Sammy, don’t you think God would’ve raised a hand by now? Been like, guys you don’t gotta do this; maybe drinking blood isn’t a good idea, or, or turning into demons? And if that’s what He _wants_ , then all the more reason to say fuck Him! Let’s just… Forget what I said before, Sam. Let’s get old and die here, together. We’ll get bald and cranky and that’s enough for me. Let’s do this our own way.”

“You’d really be happy doing that? Shoving our heads in the sand while the world gets destroyed around us? You’d be able to live with yourself? Stay sane?”

“Fuck being happy. Fuck sanity. All I need is an intact soul.”

Sam shivered despite himself, something Ruby said trying to surface in the back of his mind, but he wasn’t going to mention her again, wasn’t going to ask about Tessa anymore, either. This was between _them_ now.

Dean was watching him when Sam could focus again. Looked him up and down, went from his bloody nails to his pressed-thin lips, settled on his eyes, his own definitely a little wet. “And I don’t know if I _could_ stop you. Your, uh, your psychic thing, it scares the crap out of me.”

_Me, too._

“Dean, can we just stop? I hear you, okay? I hear what you’re saying.” A thin tear escaped from the corner of Dean’s eye, and Sam watched it until it disappeared into the hole in his cheek, then Sam said, “But I have to do this.”

“Not alone,” was Dean’s immediate reply, and Sam felt forgiven. Understood. He smiled, and Dean didn’t act scared this time when Sam went to him. Stripped his brother, then got himself naked, both of them under the covers. The fluffy, clean blankets were heavenly— _as close as I’ll get_ , thought Sam, and he hugged Dean against him.


	34. Chapter 34

 

If there were dreams, they were as quiet and peaceful as their real-life surroundings. They slept undisturbed until evening, and it was only Dean slipping out of bed that woke Sam. He blinked away the sleep-haze and watched Dean move around the room, molasses-slow and swaying with drowsiness. He quietly dug for clothes first, making a pile of unsuitable Sam-shirts before discovering a plain dark blue Dickies button-down and a tee that passed the sniff test. Clean boxers were rolled tight (dirty ones wadded up), so that was an easy pick for him, but he had to resort to his jeans from yesterday—his bag was back in Baltimore, and Sam had too many inches on Dean for them to share comfortably.

Sam didn’t want him to get dressed; he liked the way a tiny white nightlight softened the harsh angles of Dean’s body, smoothed over the bruises, the way the shadows played across his face, darkening his eyes, but he didn’t stop him. Said nothing, didn’t move, not even when, almost as an afterthought, Dean opened the other backpack, the one Sam had dumped all the stuff from the animal clinic into, just in case the innkeeper decided to have a closer look at the classic muscle car parked around the side of her hotel.

The bag rattled softly, but Dean was careful. Pulled out each vial and bottle and box, angled the labels into the weak light to read them. He lined the little bottles of liquid up on an end table next to him, like four life-saving soldiers in reserve. Next to them went the brown and white box of needles and the two syringes Ruby hadn’t used on him. The pill bottles were placed one by one on the floor in front of the table, except for the two Dean selected. He twisted the caps off one, then the other, and used a fingertip to dig out a pill from each. He hesitated, considering more, probably, but then recapped the bottles and set them next to the others.

Only when the light came on behind the closed bathroom door, then the water, did Sam sit up. Stretched, arching his back and raising his arms, falling forward over his bent legs for a moment. He wondered if Dean felt as awful as he did: itchy inside his too-tight skin, like an insect trying to break free of its chrysalis. Starving and so thirsty—Sam eyed the cold coffee and the tray of crumb cake and muffins (chocolate, not bran), then got up and went to the arrangement Dean had made instead.

All the lights were on when Dean finally came out of the bathroom in a t-shirt and boxers, his hair slicked over, wet ends curling along his cheekbones. Dean squinted at the overhead, offended, but Sam felt like they’d only been in the dark lately.

“Take your clothes off.”

There was a chair facing the bed where Sam was sitting. He’d removed the flat pillow from the seat, leaving just the hard wood for Dean to sit on, but it was the sheet folded into a square under the chair, protecting the carpet, that raised Dean’s eyebrows.

“What’s this?” he asked hesitantly, fingering the hem of his shirt.

“Sit down and I’ll show you.”

“I thought—”

“Dean. Get naked. Sit.”

He sat, and didn’t move as he was tied to the chair unless Sam moved him. Wrists and ankles cuffed, rope ran through the rings and then strung around him and the backrest, cinching his waist, then under the seat and around each thigh, pulling them as wide as they could go with the chair’s arms in the way. Exposed like this under 60 watts through frosted glass, Dean looked like a doll. Something surreal with his mottled skin, his scars. Those things, god they had scared Sam the first time he’d seen them, his imagination not as bad as reality then. Now he knew. The hellhounds had been yanked off Dean, had tried to hold onto their little bitch with their grotesquely humanoid paws, dug claws into his skin to resist being peeled from his back. Had Dean been drugged the first time? Was it given to him as a treat after?

Dean was holding his breath, eyes down, his heart beating hard just behind his ribs. Sam put his palm there, over the hook-hole scars. There was barely anything to him now—he’d be lighter, hung up like a fresh kill, but he might tear right off the hooks without muscles holding him together. He’d endured so much. For Sam. And he’d survived just to bring this newfound devotion right to Sam like a gift. And Sam had been slowly unwrapping that gift, savouring it, learning what was inside by feel, and taste, shaking it to give himself hints, and now he was down to the core of it. Little else he could do, the way they were, that would satisfy Dean, or himself. They would push back the boundaries soon, though. Sam knew there was nothing he could do to Dean that Dean wouldn’t accept, wouldn’t want.

Sam held Dean’s face like he had earlier, careful with his nails this time, but he did slap him. Again and again, until Dean couldn’t help but try to get away. Sam let go, and Dean’s head dropped back, addled from the blows, his eyes almost rolling. He hissed when Sam pinched his right nipple, then Sam slipped a 22 gauge hypodermic needle tip into him, behind the nipple and all the way through. Dean raised his head slowly, but didn’t look down at what Sam had just done.

“Sam?”

“Don’t talk.”

“I’m sorry,” Dean said, then bit hard into his lip when Sam plucked at his other nipple, a black-hubbed needle ready. He wasn’t sorry that he’d spoken, Sam realised as he made crosses through Dean’s areolas, he was apologising for something else…anything else. Everything. _Don’t do it ’cause you’re mad_ , Dean had begged him once. But Sam was mad. All the time. Pissed off at Dean’s carelessness, at Ruby’s manipulation, at his own weakness. At life and death and fate. The only thing that kept him from utter insanity at all the fear and betrayal and pain was his faith in God. Faith kept him on this path, kept him going when he’d wanted to lay down and die. Even though what was happening would take him as far from God as could be, he was doing what was _right_. He would be saving people from evil with his sacrifice, and even though it would damn him, he would do it with love and conviction in his heart.

Dean struggled a little when Sam dug five needle tips into and through the thin skin over his ribs on each side. Five more went lower, near where Ruby had jabbed the first injection of naxolone into him and then they were mirrored, too. He gave up squirming when Sam speared through the meat between his thumbs and forefingers, then one into the back of each of Dean’s hands as well, down through his palms. A closed-mouth squeal as Sam carefully tapped needles into the gaps between the bones of Dean’s feet, but he looked like he was almost asleep when Sam finally paused. He’d gone a sickly colour, his face turned away, eyes nearly closed.

“What does it feel like?”

When Dean didn’t answer, Sam jabbed his throat. Just an inch or so into Dean, but it drew the first blood when he pulled it out. Sam watched that little bead swell and swell until it spilled down Dean’s neck. He licked his lips, and now Dean was looking at him.

“You know I hate shots, Sam,” Dean whispered.

Sam scoffed and poked Dean’s throat again as punishment. “You let those guys do whatever they wanted. Why can’t I?” The needle went in deeper this time, all the way to the hub and Dean’s eyes got very big. Blood flowed through the hollow steel and out the cup at the end, coating Sam’s fingers. He waited a few seconds before removing it. Dean swallowed experimentally, then rasped, “You gonna kill me, little brother?”

A ragged smile peeled Sam’s lips back from his teeth. “Fuck, Dean. I want you to live forever.”

The bloody needle went into Dean’s thigh and it was incredible how smoothly it slid home. Sam lost count for a while, entranced by the way just the weight of one finger buried each needle to the hub. More blood, several of the needles filling up and overflowing until Dean was sitting in a puddle.

Dean broke again when Sam touched his balls. “Don’t! Sam, don’t. Fucking please—”

“Hey, hey. Shhh—” just to see the wild eyes Dean made. “Hush. You can’t scream. You get the nice lady up here and I’ll have to kill her. Do you want that?”

Dean shook his head.

“Then be quiet.”

Whimpering, and he couldn’t help it, so Sam let it pass as he pinned Dean’s ball sac to the chair. Four needles through the pulled-taut skin, but when Dean blurted, “No!” as Sam tip-touched another to a testicle, Sam stored that one in Dean’s thigh as well (in that tender-white flesh on the inside, near his groin) and stood. He fetched his Leatherman and flipped open the pliers.

“Put your tongue out.”

Dean shook his head and cast desperate eyes over to the bag where his ball gag was hidden away. Sam plucked another needle from all the ones he’d unwrapped while Dean had been in the shower, had hidden from Dean with a pillow so he didn’t freak out before Sam got him tied down. This one he stabbed hard into the shell of Dean’s ear. Had to yank it out to do it again. Dean sobbed and shied away only as far as his ropes and needles would let him, but he opened his mouth soundlessly. Couldn’t control himself enough to offer his tongue and Sam had to fish for it. Caught it, pinched hard, and pulled it long so he could get a secure hold on it with the pliers. Dean moaned when the first needle went down through the muscle close to the tip, and shut his eyes tight when it was joined by a second.

“Bite down and hold,” Sam instructed, releasing the pliers on tossing them onto the bed. Dean followed his orders—what else was he going to do? He couldn’t get those needles in his mouth without doing damage, so he caught his own tongue in his teeth, the pierced tip poking out of his mouth and dripping blood steadily down his chin and chest. Sam hadn’t expected it to bleed so much, but there was no denying that he liked the way it looked, how it smelled—he pulled Dean forward by the back of the neck and by the terror on Dean’s face, he thought Sam was going to kiss him, but Sam just wanted to be _close._ Nuzzle his nose against Dean’s skin, drag his lips and tongue over his chin and throat, get that taste into his mouth.

Sam didn’t feel his own skin catch and pull on the needles in Dean’s chest, barely heard Dean whine when it happened; the high-nasal note that came when he clutched at the row of needles along Dean’s ribs. Sam closed his eyes and let his senses lead him to the thickest river, chased it back up Dean’s throat where Dean had it bared to him, head back again, and he was having to swallow it now, too. Noisily because of his tongue, and Sam took pity on him. Pulled his head forward and when Dean gag-coughed a mouthful of blood and saliva down himself Sam stepped back. Fumbled with his pants and kicked them off and then he caught a string of that red spit in his palm and stroked his cock with it.

“I bet it hurt when they punched through your septum, huh?” Sam said. “The hole’s still there, I can see light through it sometimes.” Dean opened his eyes at that, but didn’t look up at Sam. “You don’t remember it happening, you said. I don’t want you to feel any pain, either.” That got him Dean’s incredulous attention. “I don’t. I love you, Dean.”

Impulsively, he let go of his dick and put his hands out, almost-cupping Dean’s face. The rush of love came instantly, making his fingertips tingle and his toes curl. There was a shock through his guts a second later and the lights flickered. Dean winced and the needles tapped his teeth as he tried to talk. He gave up with a pathetic groan, staring at Sam now, but Sam closed his own eyes and concentrated. Visualised. Dean. Floating in black space, healed, whole, protected, Sam’s love and power, his control, cloaking Dean like a silk cloth draped over him.

When he opened his eyes, he couldn’t hear. There was just muffled-nothing. Dean was rocking in place and the lights in the room were dancing with him, flaring and sparking. Dean followed Sam’s movements as if he was scared to look away but could hardly bear to keep watching. His tongue tip twitched when Sam took his jaw in hand and fresh blood dripped where it had just started to clot.

Dean’s throat buzzed when the needle went into to the left side of his nose, behind the perfect curve of his nostril up near the end of the bridge, but he held still until it came out the other side. Sam had to push hard to get it through the thick skin, had to pull back and adjust when he hit cartilage.

“Did you feel that?” Sam asked, and the roar that was his voice—a demented imitation of what he was used to hearing—comforted him, and he was elated when Dean gave a tiny shake of his head. Blood was coming out of his nose now too.

“You said I won’t love, won’t have compassion—look what I can do, Dean. I can keep every pain from you. I’ll protect you. Stay by my side, and I won’t let anything hurt you ever again.”

A flutter of thick, damp lashes and a tiny nod from Dean, but Sam kept his word, proved to Dean he had that power by tweaking the needles behind Dean’s nipples, pulling on them hard, dragging them out slow, and he worked that way down one side of Dean’s body and up the other until only his balls, tongue, and nose were left. He started at the top, flicking the hub of the needle a few times first before withdrawing it. More blood, and even more from his tongue and he was pleased when Dean didn’t swallow it. Pushed the fresh flood of it out between his teeth as Sam plucked the four needles stretching Dean’s sac. Sam cut the rest of the bindings from him—everything was soaked in blood and there was no reason to bother trying to save any of it.

Sam sat on the bed in front of Dean and thought carefully about pulling that protective cover away from him. Slowly, gently, releasing one hole at a time. The worst were his hands and nose. Dean didn’t know what to do with the former, attempted fists, tried to cup them together, but each was as sore as the other and he ended up just bending his wrists and tucking them against his belly, all the while rabbit-twitching his nose. He seemed reluctant to wipe at any of the blood, kept furtive eyes on Sam as he adjusted in his slippery seat. Brought his legs together gingerly and his face crumbled into a sad little pout. He wanted to run. Sam knew all his tells, and it might have even been interesting to chase him, but he loved that Dean stayed where he was, quivering now.

“Come here,” he said, his voice his own again, and it took effort on Dean’s part to obey. He didn’t like having to slide through all the blood on the chair, held his arms a little out from his body to avoid smearing them through the trickles drying down his sides. Dozens of pinholes in this thighs gushed anew when his muscles flexed as he stood. Sam reached for those thighs, forced Dean to put his stigmatised hands on Sam’s shoulders for balance as he was lifted onto the bed. Pulled forward, curved legs spread wide around Sam’s hips.

Sam’s dick slid through the blood collected under Dean’s balls, between his cheeks. Sam looked down at himself, at the web-sticky crimson connecting him to Dean as his cock throbbed and tapped that wet place, and a sudden rain fell on his cheek. More blood, from Dean’s nose and mouth, shaken from his trembling lips. He should have pierced them too, pinned them together just to pry them apart so he could feed when he wanted.

Dean came into this kiss willingly, but Sam held him down anyway. Didn’t let him draw that breath he was so used to now when he fucked up into him, kept Dean still even with Sam sucking at his tongue, cleaning his teeth and finding secret pools of blood in the recesses of his mouth. And when there was no more, Sam sunk his teeth into Dean’s tongue. Too far: there was an answering clench of Dean’s whole body around him. Dean touched his face, fingers grazing, scrabbling, begging, but Sam didn’t let go right away. In the shadow-blur of Dean’s nearness, he wondered what it would be like to drink from his brother when he was a Knight of Hell. If Sam would even still need to—probably not, but he would _want_ to, and Dean would be his favourite font.

Dean found Sam’s hands, was scratching lightly at his palms, tugging on his fingers, just something to do while Sam nursed from the deep wounds his teeth had made, and Sam waited for that rush, that scorching vitality he’d always gotten from Ruby’s blood—but it never came. If anything, Sam was more sober, more crystal-sharp and lucid, and Dean was sniveling again, moaned like he was bruised inside when Sam thrust up hard into him, frustrated. Dean lifted his face cautiously, like he knew he wasn’t supposed to, lips kissing in little pecks against Sam’s. The overhead haloed him, his tears turned him into Sam’s own weeping icon. He was going to talk and Sam wished again for those needles, and that he’d left them through Dean’s palms too. Couldn’t talk, couldn’t touch, could only sit there like some penitent whore with his hands in a receptive posture, his eyes upturned. He was like that anyway, having only looked at Sam for a split second before rolling his eyes up, away.

Sam caught Dean’s jaw one more time, hooked his fingers over Dean’s teeth, his thumb pressing into the soft flesh underneath, and jerked his face back down. Mouth broken-wide, his punctured tongue slithering around Sam’s fingers, he had no choice. If it was his power keeping Dean focused on him now or not, Sam couldn’t tell. They were together; Dean was right where Sam wanted him, filled up by Sam, mouth and ass. He’d bled for Sam, _only_ for Sam—not because of what anyone else had done to him, forced on him. This was all his love for Sam, all over the both of them.

Sam gave back what he could, coming hard and deep inside Dean, and Dean waited, so patiently, so good, for Sam to let him go so he could fold over them both until Sam softened and slipped out. Took Sam’s fingers with a sigh as come was scooped up and pushed back into him. He fell on his side, his weight barely making the bed dip, but Sam got him back on his knees, shifting onto his own so he could put his tongue in Dean’s asshole next. Sam wanted the blood caked there, more than anything. Even though it wasn’t working like he wished it would, he still loved it. He sucked and licked and scraped with his teeth and every time Dean shivered or tensed, Sam dug his tongue deep inside him until he was calm. Got Dean hard doing it and milked him, careful of the little white indentations and torn skin along the shaft.

“Feels good—oh—” Dean slurred into the blankets, toes curling against Sam’s shins and he was loud when he came. Tried to muffle it in the covers in case Sam’s earlier threat manifested. Sam let him stay in a ball when he crawled back up next to him. Wrapped himself around Dean from behind and held on until the shaking stopped. He even let Dean go when he wriggled, and after a few minutes, followed him back into the shower. The only blood in the tub by then was what Dean occasionally spit at the drain, and then what came off Sam’s body when Dean began to wash him, without being asked.

Sam returned the favour by beating Dean to the pills swiped from the veterinary clinic. Picked out generic Xanax and something he guessed by the ‘Neuro’ prefix would work on Dean’s nerves. Two of each, and a fifth one just because he liked the name on the bottle, Elavil. Laid them out in a little pentagram on the table, cold coffee and a chocolate muffin to either side.

“Eat first,” Sam said when Dean spotted the setup. Dean nodded, smiling with only half his mouth, the other half swollen, ripped, bruised. Kissed too hard and bitten, and the faster they got all this over with, the better. Sam hated seeing Dean all fucked up. Even helped him into his clothes again, hiding away the scars, the bruises and bites, the new tiny blue dots. Tried not to hover when Dean sat down and began methodically picking the chocolate chips from the muffin top and eating them slowly, careful of his tender tongue.

Sam was ready to climb the walls when Dean lost interest in the decimated muffin, the bottom half still intact, and switched to the coffee. A long first sip, then he flicked his glance to Sam as he picked up a red pill. When Sam didn’t admonish him, Dean washed down one pill after another until they were gone and the cup was mostly empty. He tried to smile again when Sam approached.

“You ready?”

“Yeah.”

Sam carried their stuff downstairs, lighter for the wad of money left on the nightstand, more than enough to replace the bedspread and towels. Dean navigated the steps with fingertips tapping the banister, the back of his hand marred by a big ugly bruise. That same hand brushed along the midnight gloss of the Impala as he made his way to the passenger side, and he cocked his head, confused when Sam followed him. He had the decency to look away when Sam jerked the backseat door open, suddenly remembering why the bags weren’t going into the trunk.

“Seem kinda agitated,” Dean remarked when they were back on the road, sailing towards St. Mary’s Convent.

“I’m not,” Sam snapped. He was. No, maybe just…eager. Adrenaline was building inside him, rushing through his system in white-hot pulses, had him sweating even as Dean shivered and flicked the heat on. Dean snorted at the too-quick answer but dropped it. Dug through the glovebox instead, and with quiet triumph discovered an almost-full flask under the pile of insurance papers they had for the car, depending on the state. He sipped from it, hissing at the sting.

They almost missed the turnoff to the convent. Just a tiny paved lane barely a mile south of the inn; they could have walked there had Sam thought Dean would actually make it. He was sighing again as the pills kicked in, knuckling his eyes and clicking his tongue like his mouth was too dry, but he shook his head at the half-empty water bottle Sam dug out from under the seat. The bottle rolled off the seat and disappeared again when Sam stamped on the breaks, catching a glimpse of worn headstones in the moonlight behind a wrought iron fence. He swung the car off the road and down the drive, grateful there wasn’t a gate blocking the way. They cruised around the edge of the overgrown cemetery until the road stopped, asphalt crumbling at the edge of a dark line of trees. A stone path turned into stairs that disappeared up into the woods, and when Sam got out and shined a flashlight beam up the path, he could make out a building hunkering in the shadows.

Dean led the way up the steps. The trees seemed particularly gnarled and aged, the barren ground frozen and cracking like glass under their boots.

“Lookit,” Dean murmured, breathing slow and heavy. He flicked his beam of light off to the left, up a small hill, illuminating another stone shape in the distance. Like a spider crouching there, some kind of altar was open to the elements. They both paused to take it in, then Sam nudged Dean and they started cautiously towards the thick oak doors of the convent. They paused just outside and Dean reached for the gun tucked into the back of his pants, but Sam stopped him.

“Here,” he whispered and passed Dean Ruby’s knife. He accepted it without looking down at it, without taking his eyes off Sam.

“You don’t need it.”

Sam ignored the weird accusatory tone Dean used and instead put his shoulder against the doors and pushed. Scraped back debris and leaves as they opened, but nothing came at them once they were inside. If anything, the shadows seemed to rear back all of a sudden, as if the Winchesters were something the darkness in this place was afraid of. Or making way for.

A bleak hallway stretched the length of the building. A glint of broken stained glass announced the chapel at the other end. Called to Sam. Beckoned him closer, the mother’s open arms he’d never known. He led the way, feeling light. Almost hollow. The sickness he’d woken up with he’d made worse, fucking around with Dean. The blood. It was _wrong_ in his system, made him feel like he was grinding gears, leaking oil, was dripping acid somewhere inside himself. Dissolving his bones slowly and steadily. He felt incomplete, aching for… _something._ Longing for it. Now, the closer he got to the chapel, the better he felt, the more all of that receded. A pleasant humming started in his head. Sam glanced at Dean to see if he heard it, but no, his brother was just keeping pace, teeth occasionally chattering together, shining his flashlight into empty cells they passed in the hallway.

The humming became music. Rising and falling, a bell-like cadence. Unfamiliar and, okay, a little bit eerie. Something ancient and powerful humming to itself in the distance, and the vibration had Sam feeling purified. Like all his cells and molecules were aligning to the notes, tuning him to the proper frequency so he could transmit the song through himself, and then to the rest of the world.

Standing in the middle of the chapel, Sam closed his eyes, concentrated. Moved a few steps, and _here._ Here was the focal point of the sound. He felt the vibration of it through the soles of his boots, and he swayed with it. It was empowering, made the darkness behind his lids explode, a sun being born inside him. Opened his eyes and watched Dean circling around him, a devoted satellite.

Dean caught him staring. Brought his flashlight up towards Sam’s face, then away. Shivered again, and they would never know if there were ghosts here with the way his breath fogged the air, obscured his face for a second.

Dean said, “You okay, Sammy?”

“Mm. Yeah.”

“So. This is the place, huh? What exactly’s gonna happen?”

“Lilith will come to break the final Seal, and I have to stop her before she does. Trap her here, and kill her.”

Dean shifted forward like he was going to cross the stone floor to Sam, but then he leaned back against the wall. Pulled the flask out of his pocket and put it to his lips. He didn’t wince this time. “Then what? I mean, what will happen to you? Are you just gonna like…disappear? Get sucked into Hell, or what?”

“Dean, I don’t know.”

“Let’s say you go directly to Hell. Are you sure you’ll be able to get out again? We let Lilith and the rest escape _accidentally_.”

The humming had stopped and the normal sounds of a desolate church in the predawn early spring morning were finally coming through to Sam. More scrabbling: mice and squirrels, birds peeping in the distance. The creaking of old trees outside the broken window and Dean’s laboured breathing.

“Sam. What do I do? If you’re just…gone.”

“Go to Bobby’s. Try to find the First Blade, but don’t go after it without help. Wait for me.”

Dean nodded. Then his knees gave way. On purpose or not, he made no effort to keep from sliding down the wall. Landed hard on his ass and dropped his head back against the stones. The sudden motion made Sam feel sick. Starving and withered inside, weak at the knees himself. He wanted blood—he _needed_ it. He had to stay strong. Dean was right—there was no way to know for sure if they’d be together after, and the sooner Sam could get back to Dean, the better.

“Y’know, Sammy…maybe it’s gotta be you. Maybe all this shit’s destiny, and we ain’t got a choice in the matter.”

Sam breathed deep, felt like he was sucking down the gloom that had gathered around them again, sensed their weaknesses and crept in close, trying to smother them. He exhaled, willing it all away, and a breeze snagged Dean’s white breath from his lips.

“Or maybe it’s Lilith, and this is exactly what she wants: you right here, like Tessa said. So you can be Lucifer’s vessel. Maybe you can’t escape this, either way.”

Dean didn’t move when Sam came to stand over him. Gave him bedroom eyes and a scabby smirk when Sam glared down at him.

Dean said, “Or maybe this is all my fault.”

“How’s that?”

“I fucked up, didn’t I? I wasn’t there for you. You been fightin’ this shit without me.”

“It’s not your fault, Dean.”

A doubting little huffed laugh, teeth bared, no proximity to an actual smile. “Yeah. If you say so.” He sniffed, and Sam saw tears on his cheeks, like falling stars. Thought about what to wish for right when Dean fell over. Was _knocked_ over. Shoved, went skidding across the cold stones and smashed into the corner. Sam felt a gust of wind push at him, too, but it did nothing to destabilise him. He turned and saw a demon coming at them from an alcove on the far side of the room, one hand up, fingers clawing at the air. Then both hands, and Sam could see its face now, contorted by the effort.

Dean was yelling, scrambling to his feet, the blade out, but this demon had something Sam wanted, and it had to be alive for him to get it. He stepped between Dean and the demon. One stopped, the other didn’t. Trying so hard, eyes like coal and growling, the demon lunged at Sam. He caught it by the throat mid-leap, curling his will around it and hanging it that way. Kicking, cursing, the demon flailed, toes _almost_ scraping the floor, and Sam saw something in the face of the man it was possessing that amused him. This demon was terrified _._ Its black eyes were huge, its thin-lipped mouth turned down even as it tried for bravura. Babbled stupid and snarky and Sam didn’t care. Dean said something, but Sam was concentrating on blood thundering through the demon’s veins.

Dean tried to grab his arm and Sam was the one that threw him now. Straight down, knees cracking against the stone. Sam didn’t need a knife this time. He had teeth, and a tongue, and power. He used all of it to get into the demon’s throat. Bit and tore and ripped until he was in deep, where the blood was warm and rich and potent. Drank down every last drop of it and finally, _finally_ , Sam felt whole. Complete. _Alive._ Every sense heightened—he could smell the rot from the cemetery, felt the soothing strength of the forsaken stones around him in his bones. Could feel Dean’s fear like a second skin, taste his drying tears, and Sam still had him pinned. Right where he should be, kneeling at his feet.

The dead body dropped bonelessly to the ground when Sam turned his back. Dean stared and Sam could see it through his eyes—the stark white face still frozen in a parody of ferociousness, limbs akimbo, neck opened up to the jugular, bloodless wound gaping. He hadn’t spilled a drop, didn’t even need to wipe his mouth.

“Probably just a posted sentry,” Sam said. “We should make sure that was the only one. C’mon.”

Sam offered Dean his hand and Dean took it. Was pulled to his feet and into Sam’s arms when he wobbled, dizzy with a headrush, and then they separated, each taking a side of the sanctuary, looking for other missed doors, Sam with his hands relaxed at his sides, Dean with Ruby’s knife ready. They rechecked the rooms in the hallway, explored the common dining area and the dorms filled with musty pigeon nests. Nothing, empty. Sam could have just said that, could _sense_ it. Nothing but the bird-wing flutter of his brother’s heart worth noting in this place, but he liked being here too much to cut their reconnoiter short.

Dean’s phone buzzed and he paused to check it, and Sam left him behind. Wandered back to the chapel. Paced around it in a pattern familiar but somehow indiscernible to him. Closed his eyes and hummed, trying to recall the music from earlier.

Dawn was softening the edges of night when they came back together near the entry. It seemed an effort on Dean’s part to drag his eyes up Sam’s body to his face, but he smiled when he finally got there, the rest of the flask and probably whatever pills he’d snuck into his pockets numbing him enough to do it.

“Got a text from Bobby,” Dean said, tucking the blade into the leather-lined sheath he’d sewn inside his jacket. “He’s in Detroit, following the Colt.” It came out like it was good news, something to celebrate. Sam nodded because he was supposed to. It didn’t matter at all to him.

“Um. Dude, it’s gross in here. Smells bad. Didn’t think rocks could smell bad, but. Think we should check out that gazebo on the hill?”

“Yeah. It’s called a ciborium.”

Another whiskey-grin. “Whatever. Nerd. My little bitch-brother and his big fuckin’ brain, huh?”

He was supposed to banter back. Dean was expecting it. Wanted something from Sam, but Sam didn’t really know what. Didn’t care. It didn’t _matter_ anymore. At least, not right now. Soon, though. Soon, he would give Dean _everything._ Anything he could ever want. Was going to give Dean eternity. And Dean must’ve seen the promise of that in his eyes, because for the first time in forever, he looked happy. Bumped Sam with his shoulder as they exited the convent. He took Sam’s hand in his as they made their way up the narrow trail.


	35. Chapter 35

There was a malevolence Dean felt as soon as he’d gotten out of the car. Patches of icy snow reflected their lights at them through the darkness, like slouching revenants just waiting for them to turn their backs. Ghosts of lost souls. Murdered nuns and sacrificed children. Dean was so fucked up he felt like one of them himself. They stayed back though, kept their distance. From Sam. Watched him with dull, greedy eyes. Lonely, they’d been waiting for someone to join them, and they might have attacked Dean had he been outside of the circle of Sam’s protection, the power emanating from him.

Sam acted like he didn’t notice the spirits. Maybe he really didn’t. He had no reason to. But Dean felt stalked. Hunted. He was glad Sam agreed to leave the convent. Felt like Sam’d be happy just to stand in that dank chapel until Lilith came looking for him a couple days from now.

Dean almost slipped going up the trail. Got ahold of Sam’s hand for balance. For comfort, too. For the memories that came with it. He tried to focus on them, but it was like they were playing in another room and he was too tired to get up and go in there. The madness of reality was too heavy to escape. Pressed in on him from all sides, trying to drive him to the ground, keep him from ever getting up. He knew exactly what that felt like, a very fresh memory.

They made it to the top of the little hill, passed between columns that looked painted with blood. Graffiti was scrawled on the altar and Dean noticed the fifteen-foot-tall metal skeleton of a cross looming above them, the top of it lost in the shadows under the roof of the ciborium. But he felt better up here, out in the open. Like he could breathe again. He looked up at Sam and the fresh air caught in his throat. He squeezed Sam’s hand just to be sure. Dean _was_ sure. Dead certain. But he still hoped.

That hope shattered like the dry leaves underfoot when Sam faced him, and Dean felt insanity finally crash over him. He was bellying down a razor blade, charging a firing squad, stepping on a lion’s tail, and Sam was just looking at him. Blinked, gave Dean a split-second of relief.

“Dean? What is it?”

“Nothin’, Sammy,” he said, crude oil for air now, but let Sam guide him to the altar, something to put their backs against as they settled down on the cold concrete floor. Dean’s hand shook as he fumbled into his coat. Bypassed the flask, couldn’t help a groan when he found what he was seeking.

Concern made a tender shape of Sam’s mouth, like right before he’d kiss one of Dean’s scratches when Sam was two and learning to mimic mothering, and what Dean wouldn’t give for his actual mother right now. Even their dad, who’d warned him of this very thing. Someone to take even an iota of responsibility from him, someone to help him decide what to do with the hilt of the knife searing his palm as he tightened his hold on it, and then it was done.

The swing brought Dean around, up onto his knees. Sounds. A tiny _pop_ and a _slick_ and a _thud_ and the first click of tongue on the back of teeth as Sam tried for Dean’s name again. Dean hadn’t thought about it. Hadn’t willed it, but there it was somehow. Ruby’s knife buried in Sam’s chest so deep a button on Sam’s shirt was broken and biting into his knuckle. Gasping, the knife heaving with each breath, Sam’s eyes never left Dean’s face. Bewildered, in pain and probably furious, if Dean knew his brother at all.

The spark was instantaneous, just like he knew it would be. Lightning-bright, searing the imprint of Sam’s skull into Dean’s brain. He buried his face in Sam’s neck, too late not to see it. Sam shuddered, jerking like electricity was coursing through him. He clawed at Dean, and Dean had to hold his hands down when they tried to remove the knife. He shuffled closer, almost in Sam’s lap, and he begged Sam to die.

“I’m sorry, Sam. I’m so sorry. It’s okay, I’m not gonna leave you. I’m here. I’m coming after you. I won’t let you go alone, baby. I couldn’t let it happen. I couldn’t let you do that, Sammy. You wouldn’t listen,” he babbled, fighting the urge to staunch the blood flowing from the wound he’d just made. Sam should be dead. Any normal person would be, but Sam wasn’t normal, the blood in his veins unnatural and unwilling to go so easily. Not even the tattoo on his chest could protect Sam from what was already inside him.

Sam huffed in Dean’s ear, softly, his body no longer twitching. Dean lifted his head, looked for that blackness to roil up out of Sam’s soul and show itself to Dean again; could stand the betrayal on Sam’s face, the confusion and anger, now that the knife had burned the demon out of him. It was dead, that thing that had slowly been taking Sam over, and it was just his little brother behind those beautiful eyes (hazel was too casual a word for the entire world being there, Dean thought).

Sam wasn’t seeing him, his eyes cloudy and unfocused, but he was breathing, his heart beating around the blade through it. Dean was as close as he could be when Sam finally gave up. It took a long time; less than a minute. The hilt of the knife jammed into Dean’s breastbone stopped thrumming. And when the skin beneath his forehead where it was resting in the crook of Sam’s neck went chill, Dean cried out, all the rage and fear he’d ever felt in his whole short, desperate life loosing itself. He screamed and clutched at Sam like he wanted him back, like he suddenly had a different plan.

Dean’s throat was raw and his body cramped, knees bruised from the unforgiving concrete, and his brother was dead in his arms. The brother he’d spent his life protecting; the brother he’d loved and ruined with that love, who’d given everything he was to Dean and whom he’d just murdered to save a world that now, in the crimson light of the rising sun, didn’t seem worth saving _at all_.

He had to concentrate to let go of Sam. Groaned when his back protested his twisting around to sit at Sam’s side after an hour hunched over him. He was sick, leaned over and puked between his bloody hands, but that was alright. Now he was completely empty. No soul, no heart, nothing fueling him. Just a stupid brain that had tried to make sense of a senseless, horrible existence for too long. A brain that was only good for one thing.

A pocket inside a pocket, his hidden stash. Nothing busted when that demon had tossed him across the room. One little glass bottle, a thin plastic syringe and one of those black-hubbed needles for the end of it. A spoon with the handle bent in half. A baggie tight with golden powder. He’d been in enough crowded truckstop bathrooms to know how to do it, and Roy had given him a refresher. Given him the stash, too, as a tip.

Dean went through the motions effortlessly: heroin on the spoon, liquid pulled from the bottle and squirted gently over the powder. Stirred it with the needle until it dissolved into a dark puddle. He didn’t bother tying off his arm; even if he missed a vein completely, what’s the worst that could happen? There was enough heroin in the syringe to kill an elephant, even without the fentanyl from the veterinary clinic.

The needle went in, a familiar sting. Would have been easier to just pump air into his veins but what was it Sammy had said to him once about rats and pleasure? A fiend for it right to the very end. He didn’t deserve it, did it anyway. He could at least yank the syringe free at a bad angle, bleed out. He did and then let himself fall towards his brother as darkness swarmed at him from all sides.

There was a clutching sensation around his heart, squeezing hard, slowing it, and that was good, what he wanted. He had no more use for it anyway. Sam wasn’t there to match his own to it.

Something cool touched his face, a mother’s caress as the wind brushed through the withered grass around them, and the last thing he heard was a peculiar yipping sound in the distance.

Sam was moving. Breathing. His chest rising and falling in a strange rhythm. Dean blinked slowly, his vision doubled, his neck with a scaffold’s crick in it, and Sam was breathing.

No.

The body under his cheek was stiff, lifeless still and the groan Dean let out disturbed the butterflies feeding on Sam’s blood. Dark bodies, little dots of blue at the edges of ragged, butter-dipped wingtips, a dozen of them fluttered as his breath startled them, but they didn’t leave. Covered Sam’s chest and as Dean watched, dazed and underwater, their wings all closed as one and opened the same, and again, a slow, synchronistic pulse.

More signs of life from the corner of his aching eye. The sun was creeping up behind them, pointing out things worth looking at, lighting up the eyes of a fox standing a little ways off. Dean had never seen one in real life, and he decided he liked it immediately. It had a clever face and familiar gaze. It regarded him solemnly, head bobbing up and down a few times.

“Fuck off, buddy,” Dean griped, his voice a sorry, sore rasp. He couldn’t lift his head from Sam’s shoulder. Couldn’t move his legs. His arms were okay, though his hands were very cold and damp. He pushed himself upright and that caused most of the butterflies to zip away. It wasn't even noon and they must have been hungry to come out so early, as cold as it was. Many returned in seconds to the easy meal of his little brother’s heart’s blood.

“Weirdos. You too,” he said to the fox who hadn’t gone anywhere with his shifting, had actually sat down and wrapped its long, snow-tipped tail around its feet. “You know something I don’t, huh?”

Another yip, like the one he’d heard before he should have died last night. The fox’s ears tipped back to listen, then flexed towards him as Dean searched the ground for the hypodermic.

“Listen to your brother, kid. Get outta here.”

There was stuff left in the rig, about a quarter of what he’d mixed up. Still, he shouldn’t be here.

“Let this be a lesson.” He wagged a finger at the animal. “Don’t half-ass things.” The fox wasn’t paying attention, was instead glaring into the trees. Dean tilted his head as much as he could, and he could see a pair of crows looking down at him.

“He was here first, guys. Eh. Just make sure there’s enough left for Bobby to burn when you’re done, okay?”

He couldn’t make the syringe work. He tried forever, and he passed out on his own once, waking up to more butterflies, and the fox had settled down to watch him while the crows muttered obscenities. The hypodermic rolled out of reach and the numbness had graduated up his legs to his left hand and the side of his face, and the day was going to be beautiful. Dean managed to scoop a cloud-like pile of powder out of the baggie and snorted it off his pinky up the numb side of his nose, and then another when he felt no burn, though his mouth filled with blood on the third bump.

“I’d leave it to the crows, kid,” he slurred to the fox. “Sammy told me they get high on their own. Next thing you know you’ll be sucking dick for smack in the big city, you take a bite of me.”

The fox yawned and stood, stretching. Then it lowered its head and waited.

“Alright. Warned ya.”

Dean slumped until his head rested against Sam’s utterly still chest, close enough to the knife in Sam’s heart to kiss the hilt. He’d rather kiss Sam, but there was no getting up there, and besides, he’d see him soon enough. Killing himself twice now had to be an express ticket. He could move just enough to reach a slow hand across Sam’s body, scattering butterflies. It always baffled him that Sam kept his gun in his coat and a knife at his back, opposite of the way Dean packed, but he was glad of it now.

The fox darted away at the sound of the gunshot, but not far. The crows cursed and squabbled in the air. The butterflies were gone the longest, but the fox didn’t mind sharing the warm blood when a few found their way back to settle on Dean’s ear and lips.

They were all long gone by the time Bobby found the bodies. Dean’s last text ended with coordinates, and Bobby had put his foot down, cut two hours off his travel time, but he knew in his heart he’d be too late. He’d tried to reach Sam, but it’d been weeks since any of his calls had been picked up by the boy.

Bobby looked for the Impala, recognised tire tracks in the mud, but the car wasn’t there. He followed footprints up to the old, partially dismantled convent, frowning at the drag-footed state of the left pair, and it was the mid-morning sun catching the gleam off the face of Dean’s watch that drew Bobby’s attention up the hill.

His heart had been broken long ago, and for the first time, he was thankful for it. He couldn’t even be mad at them. Hell, it was a shocker they’d made it this long if Bobby was honest with himself. They could have died a hundred times before now; should’ve. That it was like this… Bobby nodded to himself. They’d always been full of surprises.

He tried not to inspect them too closely as he untangled their bodies. A little stiff, but he’d got there before the worst of it set in. Dean was a mess. Looked chewed on, starved and beaten, but as Bobby cradled him, carried him like a sleeping child (and he didn’t weigh much more than one), the ruined, blasted side of his face hidden against Bobby’s chest, Bobby saw on the unmarred side a peacefulness Dean had never achieved in life. It wasn’t a comfort.

Sam was harder to lift, and there was nothing close to peace on his face, but somehow that just made him look all the more like the angry little boy Bobby had always felt so much compassion and empathy for.

A flask of whiskey, one deep, deep hole a few dozen yards into the forest. Two bodies. The way they fit in the narrow grave had them lying face to face almost, but Bobby knew it was alright. He knew. More whiskey, for them. The salt was easy, the gasoline not so much, and the fire brought tears to his eyes. Easiest part was filling the grave. Like tucking the boys in at night, which he’d done a number of times, years ago. This was a good place for them. Together, and no one would know. No one would disturb them.

The worst part was pulling that dagger from Sam’s chest. He wrapped it in a handkerchief and tucked it in his jacket. Dean had told him what it could do.

Sigils were smeared inside the convent, salt poured in every last crack and crevice, holy water daubed on doors and splashed over thresholds. The corpse he found in the chapel was an unpleasant surprise, but he hefted it by the ankles and dragged it around back and down to the river, let it roll over the bank and into the frigid rushing water.

Dean had told him to be on the lookout for someone with information. Bobby figured that info would be on Lilith because she was still out there breaking Seals. Apparently, sixty-six weren’t enough, or maybe she was looking for someone else to spring Lucifer. He doubted she’d have any luck. Whatever it was, the world was intact. For now. He’d researched that blade and was keeping his fingers crossed it could take down Lilith, and the Colt was on its way back to the States. He was gonna lose a lot of his private library in trade for it, but he’d managed to keep his soul.

A month later, sitting at the bar of the one dive in town he knew was demon-proof, the rumble of the Impala’s engine through the thin plank walls made him tug his cap down hard. A woman strolled in and headed right for him. Sat on the stool next to him, smelling a bit like grave dirt and funeral lilies. She put a set of keys with a bullet dangling from the fob on the bar top. Bobby quickly put his hand over them, scooped them into his pocket.

Bobby said, “Hope you didn’t put too many miles on it.”

A shrug. “Dean told me I could take her for a ride.” She smiled, but her eyes were empty. “He owed me one.”

She ordered something expensive and red that he knew he’d end up paying for.

“Tessa,” Bobby said, “you gotta know something.”

“We’re in for it, is what I know.” She sipped her Bordeaux and poked a peanut around the bar top.

“‘We’ who?”

She wasn’t smiling anymore. “Everyone. I tried to warn Dean.”

He looked away from the sour-faced Reaper. “What did you say to him?”

“Just that there was no guarantee they’d end up together.”

Bobby thumbed his cap up some. “What?”

Her fingers squeaked on the damp glass. “Sam’s in Heaven.”

Tears sprang into Bobby’s eyes and he didn’t bother trying to hide them. “Heaven?” He didn’t mean to sound so shocked, though. “Where’s Dean, then?”

She sighed heavily. “Well, he _was_ in Hell. He’s not anymore. No one knows where he is, only that the First Blade is missing, too. There’s a few angels looking for him. Not enough. They’ve got a civil war going on up there. Half of the angels are fighting Lilith, trying to keep her from doing any more damage on Earth. The other half are fighting amongst themselves.”

“Over Sam.”

Tessa threw back half her wine before answering. “Some of them—and I’m not naming names—” she shivered, lowered her voice “—are trying to release Sam. Send him back. They want Armageddon, but they don’t want Lucifer coming up there to look for his one true vessel. And some are fighting to keep Sam there for exactly that reason. To protect him.”

Bobby waved another round over. Fiddled with the bronze bowl while they silently waited. She peered into it and frowned at him, offended by the gold ore, hemlock, and mace. It was his turn to shrug.

A deep breath, then: “Why’s Sam in Heaven?” There wasn’t a good way to ask that, but he still winced at the words.

“He was very devout,” Tessa offered, said like it was something sad. “Despite what he did, he had true faith in God, and felt he was doing the right thing.” She touched her lips to her wine glass but didn’t drink. Sat it back down and flatly added, “But Dean murdered his brother. And he _despaired_.” She jabbed a thumb upwards. “They get kinda butthurt about that.”

“Ah, hell.”

“Yeah. Exactly. But what’s that old saying? ‘Divided for love's sake, for the chance of union.’”

“‘This is the creation of the world, that the pain of division is as nothing, and the joy of dissolution all,’” Bobby intoned sadly.

Tessa drained her glass, flashed a thin smile at Bobby and added, “‘For these fools of men and their woes care not thou at all.’”

“You seem to care,” Bobby pointed out.

“It’s like I told Dean—I _like_ being an angel. I _like_ my job. I’m good at what I do, and after Lucifer is free, there won’t be a job for me. Because there won’t be any people. Lucifer will wipe out everything and everyone on Earth. Then he’ll come for the rest of the Host. Anyone that didn’t go along with his little temper tantrum—any angel not fallen, basically. Including the Reapers.”

“Well, I don’t mean to be blasphemous or what’n’ever, but…where’s God in all this?”

She flicked the peanut off the bar, sent it clinking amidst the bottom shelf. The bartender glanced over at the noise and Tessa bit her lip, then she looked at Bobby, something almost guilty in her pale green eyes. “I don’t know. I don’t know if He even cares anymore. But the angels do. And I gotta admit, the archangels especially are more than enough to contend with.”

“Are any of them strong enough to stop Lilith?”

“Probably.”

“So, there’s some hope there, at least.”

“Yeah.”

Silence and drinking, Hal Ketchum on the jukebox.

“Can you get word to Sam?”

“Sorry, I don’t have the access codes to that level of Heaven.”

“There’s gotta be a way.”

“There might be. You seem pretty clever, maybe you’ll figure it out.”

“How much time you think we’ve got?”

Tessa stood up and pulled her snug leather jacket around herself. “I don’t know that, either. But I’m scared, Bobby. Dean…” She shook her head and made to walk off, but Bobby chanced grabbing her arm.

“What? What about him?”

Tessa stared him down until he let her go. “You knew him best. How much damage do you think he’ll do to reunite himself with Sam?”

“I burned their bones.”

“Do you really think that matters to an archangel?”

She left. Bobby sat at the bar for one more round, contemplating. Then he stood, the Impala’s keys biting into the palm of his hand, and headed home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [i'm crying, we're all crying](http://hellhoundsprey.tumblr.com/post/174021581184/sam-wasnt-seeing-him-his-eyes-cloudy-and)   
> 


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